EDGEHILL 
ESSAYS 


BY 


ADRIAN  HOFFMAN  JOLINE 

Author  of 

"Meditations  of  an  Autograph  Collector" 

"The  Diversions  of  a  Book  Lover" 

"At  the  Library  Table" 


BOSTON 

RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

Cije  <£>orfjam 
1911 


Copyright,  1910,  by  A.  H.  Joline 
All  Rights  Reserved 


GORHAM  PRESS,  BOSTON,  U.  S.  A. 


To  M. 


267777 


i 


PREFACE 

)  dignify  these  desultory  papers  by  the  title 
of  "Essays,"  may  seem  presumptuous; 
but  by  a  liberal  construction  of  the  dic 
tionary  definition,  they  may  be  so  styled 
without  grave  offence,  for  they  are  short 
sketches,  disquisitions,  and  experiments.  Far  be  it 
from  me  to  make  pretense  to  the  honorable  name  of 
"essayist."  "Essayists,  like  poets,  are  born  and  not 
made,"  says  Henley,  and  I  am  glad  that  he  adds  con 
cerning  the  essayist,  "for  wisdom,  it  is  not  absolutely 
necessary  that  he  have  it."  That  relieves  my  mind 
greatly.  He  also  assures  us  that  the  essayist  "seems 
to  write  not  for  bread  nor  for  a  place  in  society,  but 
for  the  pleasure  of  writing."  This  also  reassures  me. 
At  all  events,  whether  these  are  essays  or  some 
thing  infinitely  less,  they  were  written  at  Edgehill; 
not  the  place  in  Warwickshire  where  Charles  I.  and 
Essex  fought  their  famous  battle,  nor  the  rambling 
building  at  Princeton  where  years  ago  lads  were  pre 
pared  for  college,  but  in  a  New  Jersey  cottage  on  the 
brow  of  a  hill.  The  atmosphere  there  is  more  book 
ish  than  that  of  Wall  Street,  but  it  must  be  owned 
that  some  essays  produced  in  that  financial  region 
have  been  pecuniarily  more  profitable  than  their  coun 
try  companions.  They  were  railway  mortgages.  The 
style  was  dry  and  monotonous,  but  it  was  serious  and 
convincing.  No  one  ever  disagreed  with  my  views  as 
expressed  in  those  contributions  to  literature ;  whereas 
in  other  fields  almost  everyone  refuses  to  concur  with 

5 


6  PREFACE 

me,  except  when  I  am  merely  "embroidering  the  ob 
vious,  "  as  a  pert  man  in  Life  unkindly  said  in  regard 
to  a  modern  essay-writer. 

In  the  longest  of  these  papers  it  was  not  my  pur 
pose  to  present  an  original  review  of  the  life  and  work 
of  Francis  Jeffrey,  but  only  to  give  an  outline  of  his 
career  and  to  cite  some  contemporaneous  estimates  of 
his  personality,  his  character,  and  his  merits.  He  is 
now  little  known  except  to  those  who  make  a  study  of 
the  books  of  the  middle  nineteenth  century.  His 
"Life"  by  Cockburn  is  a  melancholy  monument  of  dull 
mediocrity  on  the  part  of  the  biographer.  Sir  Leslie 
Stephen's  admirable  sketch  in  the  Dictionary  of  Na 
tional  Biography  is  far  more  satisfactory  and  I  have 
used  it  freely.  In  recent  years  Professor  Gates  has 
published  a  critical  study  of  Jeffrey  as  a  reviewer  in 
Three  Studies  in  Literature  (1899),  and  Professor 
Winchester  has  added  a  brief  supplement  in  his  Group 
of  English  Essayists  (1910).  I  have  not  attempted 
to  invade  their  province.  If  I  have  quoted  liberally 
from  books  of  gossip  and  reminiscence,  it  has  been 
because  the  writers  gave  a  more  vivid  presentation  of 
their  subject  than  I  could  give  by  mere  paraphrase. 

ADRIAN  H.  JOLINE. 

Edgehill,  Bernardsville,  New  Jersey. 
November,  1910. 


CONTENTS 

I.  About  the  Bookshelves 9 

II.  The  Quest  of  the  Autograph 31 

III.  Reflections  of  an  Autograph  Lover 55 

IV.  A  Certain  Affectation  of  the  Great 67 

V.  A  Georgian   Poet 73 

VI.  A  Famous  Reviewer 103 

VII.  Manners   Makyth   Man 197 

VIII.  The  War  on  the  Colleges 213 


ABOUT  THE  BOOKSHELVES 

SOMETIMES  it  seems  to  most  of  us  that  much 
good  paper  and  precious  time  are  wasted 
in  the  preparation  and  publication  of  books 
about  books,  variously  entitled  ''Diver 
sions",  "Excursions",  "Reflections",  "Ram 
bles",  "Wanderings",  "Among  My  Books",  "Book- 
Lovers",  "Book  Collectors",  and  all  the  other  names 
devised  with  more  or  less  ingenuity  by  the  tribe  of 
scribblers.  In  our  utilitarian  age  they  must  often  ap 
pear  vain,  trifling,  purposeless  and  tiresome.  It  may 
be  that  in  rare  instances  they  are  mildly  amusing;  but 
when  we  are  deafened  from  day  to  day  by  the  cry  of 
the  superior  person  that  we  must  be  continually  striv 
ing  "for  the  nation's  service",  with  only  brief  inter 
missions  for  food  and  sleep,  and  that  culture  is  some 
thing  to  be  despised  because  it  does  nothing  to  "ad 
vance  the  interests  of  humanity",  we  are  led  to  admit 
that  those  of  us  who  give  serious  attention  to  mere 
books  ought  to  hide  our  heads  in  shame  and  try  to 
escape  conviction  of  the  offence  of  being  what  Jesse 
Lynch  Williams  would  call  "lily-handed  dilettanti"; 
useless,  futile,  as  unworthy  as  the  skulkers  on  the 
field  of  battle.  It  is  true  that  indictments  have  rather 
lost  their  terrors  in  our  times,  because  almost  every 
one  is  being  indicted  for  something,  and  a  man  scarcely 
ventures  to  join  a  friend  in  smoking  an  after-dinner 
cigar  lest  he  be  arrested  for  "conspiracy",  which  in 
its  last  analysis,  means  a  "breathing  together";  and 
while,  as  far  as  I  know,  neither  the  statutes  of  the 

9 


io  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 


United  States  nor  those  of  the  forty-six  States — soon 
to  be  forty-eight—forbid  our  breathing  as  long  as  we 
do  it  alone,  we  incur  grave  risks  if  we  do  it  in  com 
pany  with  another. 

This  sort  of  apology  is  common  with  writers  about 
books.  In  his  preface  to  Excursions  in  Libraria, 
Mr.  G.  H.  Powell  falls  into  line  and  tries  to  convince 
us  that  he  is  addressing  himself  "rather  to  the  humane 
interests  of  the  general  reader,  than  to  what  may  re 
spectfully  be  called  the  refined  curiosities  of  the  biblio 
phile,  to  the  collector  of  books,  that  is,  as  books,  and 
not  as  antiquities  or  objects  of  exoteric  virtu,  in  fine, 
to  the  book-buyer  who  is  also,  and  by  virtue  of  his 
office,  a  Voracious'  reader,  even  if  he  be  not  one  of 
those 

'Bibliophagi,  or  men  whose  heads 
Do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders' 

from  excessive  application  to  study."  I  am  not  going 
to  make  any  more  excuses;  to  those  who  love  books 
they  are  offensive,  and  to  those  who  do  not  care  for 
books  "as  books",  they  are  superfluous. 

To  be  candid,  some  of  the  many  volumes  of  book- 
gossip  are  neither  entertaining  nor  profitable.  Hav 
ing  been  guilty  of  inflicting  one  or  two  upon  a  patient 
public— but  as  the  sales  were  small  the  number  of  the 
afflicted  was  limited — I  may  be  allowed  to  say  that  I 
think  the  popular  disregard  of  them  is  abundantly  jus 
tified.  I  encountered  recently  one  of  these  "Book  Ex 
cursions"  which  convinced  me  that  the  hostile  judg 
ment  is  sound.  The  writer  gravely  tells  us  that 
"Goldsmith  was  a  delightful  author",  and  vouchsafes 
the  information  that  "Mrs.  Lewes  (sic)  was  'George 
Eliot'  "  and  that  Dickens  was  known  as  'Boz'.  One 


ABOUT  THE  BOOKSHELVES  1 1 

longs  for  Charles  Lamb's  candle  to  examine  this  man's 
bumps.*  We  are  further  assured  that  "the  letters  and 
journals  of  men  who  have  filled  positions  of  public 
trust  are  often  of  the  utmost  value."  This  book  con 
tains  another  passage  which  is  more  offensive  than 
amusing.  What  shall  we  think  of  an  author  who 
says:  "The  Protestant  Episcopal  burial  service,  much 
lauded  in  certain  quarters,  is  well  adapted  to  the  com 
monplace  ministrations  of  an  ordinary  priest,  but  its 
fixed  and  unalterable  sentences  and  sonorous  but  in 
sipid  platitudes  are  poorly  adjusted  to  finer  needs!" 
After  that,  we  may  not  wonder  that  this  "extraor 
dinary  priest"  or,  more  properly,  minister,  who  is 
probably  offended  by  the  "fixed  and  unalterable  sen 
tences"  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  embellishes  his  book 
with  a  portrait  of  himself!  Yet  the  book  occupies 
space  on  the  shelves,  and  is  "advertised"  as  "of  rare 
interest  and  charm".  I  am  glad  it  is  rare. 

The  love  of  books  seems  to  be  inherent  in  some 
natures.  I  venture  to  say  that  no  one  will  dispute  that 
assertion,  which,  as  I  reflect  about  it,  appears  to  be  of 
the  same  order  as  those  about  Goldsmith  and  George 
Eliot.  After  all,  what  is  more  impressive  than  a  good, 
sound,  respectable  truism?  How  much  more  restful  it 
is  than  George  Chesterton's  mocking  paradoxes.  I 
fear  that  Disraeli  was  anticipating  Chesterton  and  try 
ing  to  be  "bright"  when  he  made  Mr.  Phoebus  say,  in 
Lothair:  "Books  are  fatal,  they  are  the  curse  of  the 
human  race.  Nine-tenths  of  existing  books  are  non 
sense,  and  the  clever  books  are  the  refutation  of  that 


*"Lamb  got  up  and,  taking  a  candle,  said,  'Sir,  will  you  al 
low  me  to  look  at  your  phrenological  development?'  "  Hay- 
don's  Diary,  quoted  in  Ainger's  "Lamb". 


12  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

nonsense.  The  greatest  misfortune  that  ever  befel  man, 
was  the  invention  of  printing."  He  may  have  been 
thinking  only  of  Disraeli  novels.  It  may  be  true,  as 
Stevenson  observed,  that  "books  are  good  enough  in 
their  own  way,  but  they  are  a  mighty  bloodless  substi 
tute  for  life,"  but  I  think  he  was  only  pretending  a  good 
deal.  It  is  like  saying  that  strawberries  are  a  poor 
substitute  for  beef. 

A  certain  vanity  possesses  the  soul  of  the  book- 
fancier.  He  loves  to  talk  about  his  own  books  and 
to  parade  them  with  pride;  but  it  is  surely  a  harmless 
vanity.  I  do  not  boast  of  any  of  the  distinguished 
volumes,  prizes  of  the  book-auction,  but  I  enjoy  the 
loitering  about  the  shelves,  even  the  inspection  of  the 
backs  of  the  books,  often  unable  to  decide  which  one 
I  shall  take  down  for  reading  purposes.  In  the  true 
lover  of  books,  this  habit  of  wandering  about  the 
shelves  becomes  inveterate.  When  Robert  Southey's 
mind  and  memory  failed  him  and  after  his  power  of 
comprehension  had  gone,  he  still  maintained  his  habit 
of  strolling  in  the  library.  "His  dearly  prized  books 
were  a  pleasure  to  him  almost  to  the  end"  writes  his 
son,  "and  he  would  walk  slowly  around  his  library 
looking  at  them  and  taking  them  down  mechanically." 
There  is  much  pathos  in  this  picture.  It  is  a  strange 
manifestation  of  human  nature  that  many  book-lovers 
do  not  like  to  have  their  treasures  taken  from  the 
shelves  by  any  but  themselves.  Whether  it  is  because 
they  fear  a  disarrangement  of  the  order  or  on  account 
of  an  apprehension  of  possible  loss,  it  is  not  easy  to 
tell;  perhaps  it  is  a  feeling  akin  to  the  aversion  which 
most  Anglo-Saxon  people  have  to  being  personally 
jostled  by  strangers.  The  same  Southey  was  sensi 
tive  about  having  his  books  handled  by  a  guest.  As 


ABOUT  THE  BOOKSHELVES  13 

is  generally  known,  he  had  a  large  collection;  the 
whole  house  at  Keswick  was  filled  with  books,  even 
the  bedrooms  and  the  stairways.  Mr.  T.  J.  Hogg 
tells  us  that  he  took  out  a  volume  one  day  as  he  was 
going  downstairs  with  his  host.  "Southey  looked  at 
me"  he  adds,  "as  if  he  was  displeased,  so  I  put  it  back 
again  instantly,  and  I  never  ventured  to  take  down 
one  of  his  books  another  time."  Yet  Southey  was 
fond  of  selecting  a  book  from  the  shelves  and  read 
ing  from  it,  allowing  the  favored  friend  to  keep  it  as 
long  as  he  pleased  and  turn  over  the  leaves,  if  he, 
Southey,  had  taken  it  down  himself.  As  far  as  my 
own  little  library  is  concerned,  I  am  rejoiced  in  my 
inmost  soul  when  a  man  exhibits  interest  enough  in 
any  one  of  my  books  to  pull  it  away  from  its  com 
panions,  provided  that  he  does  not  draw  it  out  by  the 
top.  My  library  is  a  place  which  I  want  to  make  the 
most  of  and  to  have  my  friends  do  likewise.  As  was 
said  by  John  Fletcher. 

"Give  me  leave 

To  enjoy  myself.    That  place  that  does  contain 
My  books,  the  best  companions,  is  to  me 
A  glorious  court,  where  hourly  I  converse 
With  the  old  sages  and  philosophers." 

In  confidence,  it  is  not  so  much  the  sages  and  philoso 
phers,  for  they  are  apt  to  talk  too  long  and  tediously. 
Those  of  us  who  are  strictly  truthful  derive  much 
more  comfort  from  the  chat  of  less  serious  folk. 
Bacon  and  Locke,  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  Doctor 
McCosh,  are  well  enough  when  some  one  is  looking 
at  you,  but  a  few  of  the  French  memoirs,  or  the  best 
of  the  novels  are  better  adapted  to  the  promotion  of 
private  enjoyment. 

The  ideal  library  room,   meo  judice,  is  long  and 


i4  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

spacious,  not  too  lofty,  with  the  shelves  low  enough  to 
permit  of  rambling  without  availing  of  a  set  of  steps. 
It  is  not  the  sort  of  library  which  arouses  poetic  fervor 
or  is  perpetuated  in  pictures;  not  the  stately  hall  to 
which  Bulwer  invites  us  when  he  tells  us  to 

"Sit  here  and  muse: — it  is  an  antique  room — 
High-roof'd,  with  casements,   through  whose  purple 

pane 

Unwilling  daylight  stealing  through  the  gloom, 
Comes  like  a  fearful  stranger,'* 

but  that  library  is  not  at  all  suited  to  my  taste.  It 
may  be  well  enough  for  poets,  who  muse  more  than 
they  read,  and  whose  abodes  are  not  ordinarily  in  the 
nature  of  baronial  halls,  but  for  humbler  men  a  mod 
erately  low  ceiling,  with  no  purple  panes,  but  plenty 
of  frank  daylight  pouring  in  generously  and  not  steal 
ing  in  furtively,  is  infinitely  more  desirable;  and  at 
night  I  want  good  electric  lights  and  do  not  care  to  be 
compelled  to  grope  about  with  a  precarious  and  in 
effective  candle.  Laurence  Hutton's  library  at  uPeep 
o'  Day"  in  Princeton  and  some  others  I  could  men 
tion,  which  do  not  give  the  impression  that  they  are 
places  of  show  but  are  delightful  workshops,  are  far 
more  agreeable  to  the  real  book-fancier.  I  confess  a 
liking  for  Southey's  methods,  and  my  own  books  are 
scattered  all  over  the  home,  gathered  in  every  room 
except  the  butler's  pantry  from  which  by  a  stern  do 
mestic  decree  they  are  hopelessly  excluded.  There 
should  be  nothing  to  detract  from  the  bookishness ;  pos 
sibly  a  few  prints  may  be  permitted,  but  never 
framed  autographs.  The  autograph  letter  or  manu 
script  is  a  tender  thing,  to  be  enshrined  in  a  portfolio; 
to  frame  it  is  a  desecration;  I  have  some  framed  auto 
graphs  myself.  Every  book-lover  must  be  pleased 


ABOUT  THE  BOOKSHELVES  15 

with  the  description  of  the  library  of  Francis  Park- 
man,  in  No.  50  Chestnut  Street,  Boston,  where  his 
printed  books,  several  thousand,  were  stored,  together 
with  his  large  collection  of  manuscripts.  "Up  in  that 
study"  writes  Mr.  Sedgwick,  uhe  used  to  sit  all  the 
winter  months,  in  the  company  of  his  books  and  manu 
scripts,  while  the  fire  from  the  open  stove  flickered 
salutations  to  the  shelves  opposite,  and  the  books 
stared  back  at  trophies  got  forty  years  before  on  the 
Oregon  trail,  bow,  arrows,  shields,  pipe  of  peace, 
hanging  tamely  on  the  wall.  *  *  *  From  other 
walls,  Sir  Walter  Scott,  a  lion,  and  a  cat  looked 
gravely  at  Colonel  Shaw,  Colleoni,  Diirer's  Knight  (a 
favorite),  and  at  the  facade  of  Notre  Dame;  but  pic 
tures  had  no  great  liberty  of  place,  for  the  book 
shelves  spread  themselves  all  over  the  room."*  The 
"open  stove"  grates  a  little  on  the  nerves,  but  that 
may  be  forgotten.  Parkman  is  one  of  the  immortals, 
but  to  me  he  is  especially  dear  because  he  was  so  fond 
of  his  cats.  No  library  is  absolutely  perfect  without 
an  open  fire— stoveless  be  it  understood— and  a  fat, 
comfortable  cat  who  will  purr  on  pressure.  Nothing 
but  my  abhorrence  of  all  discursiveness  prevents  me 
from  here  indulging  in  a  disquisition  on  cats;  not  An 
goras,  mind,  nor  the  prize-winners  at  the  show;  just 
plain  cats. 

Sad  and  selfish  as  it  may  seem,  there  is  not  much 
pleasure  in  the  tours  about  the  shelves  if  one  is  ac 
companied  by  anybody.  The  excursions  must  needs 
be  solitary,  and  the  wanderer  enjoys  most  his  own  un 
attended  roamings;  I  like  to  have  friends  roam 
among  the  books,  but  I  know  better  than  to  tag  after 


*Francis  Parkman:  H.  D.  Sedgwick:  252. 


1 6  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

them  as  if  I  feared  to  trust  them.  No  one  need  fol 
low  me  in  my  little  explorations;  it  is  the  great  privi 
lege  of  a  reader  to  "skip"  wisely  whatever  bores  him. 
But  for  that  blessed  privilege  I  do  not  know  what 
would  become  of  us.  How  little  do  the  babblers  com 
prehend  when  they  prattle  about  the  folly  of  the  book- 
lover  who  buys  such  numbers  of  books  that  he  can 
never  read!  I  know  that  I  am  going  to  utter  mere 
twaddle,  but  I  have  lately  discovered  that,  like  him 
who  talked  prose  without  knowing  it,  I  have  been  un 
consciously  talking  and  writing  twaddle  all  my  life.  1 
believe  that  the  phrase  about  "talking  prose",  com 
monly  associated  with  the  "Bourgeois  Gentilhomme", 
really  belongs  to  the  Comte  de  Soissons.*  This  choice 
bit  of  learning  I  am  stealing  from  an  old  copy  of  the 
Pall  Mall  Magazine.  Most  of  the  pretended  learn 
ing  of  twaddlers  is  derived  from  some  such  source. 

Usually  there  is  little  that  is  attractive  about  an 
ancient  law-book.  These  legal  treatises  are  dreary 
things,  whether  new  or  old,  and  they  repel  the  "gentle 
reader",  for  they  are  books  only  in  form.  The  very 
modern  ones  are  the  most  exasperating  of  all,  when 
they  tell  you,  for  example,  that  parol  testimony  may 
not  be  admitted  to  vary  the  terms  of  a  written  instru 
ment—fifty  cases  cited  in  note  to  sustain  the  profound 
proposition,  — and  add  that  sometimes  it  may— citing 
fifty  more  cases  in  another  note,  culled  from  the  re 
ports  of  all  sorts  of  courts  from  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  Okla 
homa.  This  confuses  the  casual  peruser,  who  will 
worry  through  life  oppressed  by  grave  uncertainty  as 
to  what  the  law  on  that  subject  really  is.  The  old 


*Lettres  de  Sevigne   (June  12,  1686). 


ABOUT  THE  BOOKSHELVES  17 

books  are  better,  and  now  and  then  we  may  detect  in 
them  a  flavor  other  than  that  of  decayed  binding. 
Here  is  a  little  one,  printed  in  London  in  1659;  a 
small  1 6  mo  volume,  of  one  hundred  and  eighty-seven 
pages  only.  Compare  it  with  the  three  large  volumes  of 
"Cook  on  Corporations",  in  which  are  embalmed  all 
the  wisdom  and  lack  of  wisdom  displayed  by  the 
courts  in  dealing  with  corporate  problems,  from  the 
seventeenth  to  the  twentieth  century.  Behold  how 
slight  a  book  it  is ;  only  the  title  is  voluminous.  It  is 
by  one  William  Shepheard,  Sergeant  at  Law,  and  is 
entitled  "Of  Corporations,  Fraternities  and  Guilds; 
or  a  Discourse  wherein  the  Learning  of  the  Law  touch 
ing  Bodies-Politique  is  unfolded,  showing  the  Use  and 
Necessity  of  that  Invention,  the  Antiquity,  various 
Kinds,  Order  and  Government  of  the  same."  It  is 
dedicated  to  'his  dear  countrymen'  and  the  learned 
author — he  of  the  "Touchstone" — says: 

"The  Soveraignty  which  is  placed  in  Man  over  the 
rest  of  the  Creatures  is  derived  from  the  sole  advan 
tage  of  his  Reason,  for  in  Corporal  power  he  is  much 
inferior  to  many.  The  Excellency  of  Reason  consists 
in  fitting  Laws  and  Politics  for  our  better  Govern 
ment,  and  the  best  of  Politics  is  that  Invention  where 
by  men  have  bin  fram'd  into  Corporations,  Guilds  or 
Fraternities,  for,  whereas  other  Laws  are  adapted, 
but  for  the  benefit  of  Individuals,  this  has  a  more 
noble  end,  and,  if  it  were  possible,  would  preserve 
the  Species;  and  although  Art  cannot  altogether  ar 
rive  at  the  perfection  of  Nature,  yet  has  it  in  this 
shew'd  a  fair  Adumbration,  and  given  to  man  the 
nearest  resemblances  of  his  maker:  that  is,  to  be  in  a 
sort  immortal." 

In  our  day  we  are  not  given  to  the  belief  that 
corporations  are  quite  as  divine  as  all  that;  but,  to  be 


1 8  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

fair,  the  sapient  Shepheard  was  not  referring  to  cor 
porations  as  we  know  them  now.  The  corporations 
of  the  time  of  which  he  wrote  were  mere  infants.  Yet 
he  does  add  something  which  shows  that  certain  ideas 
of  our  own  generation  are  by  no  means  original  among 
us.  "These  things"  he  remarks,  "are  to  be  known: 
that  all  By-laws  by  them  made  against  the  Liberty 
and  Freedom  of  the  People,  as,  to  forbid  or  Restrain 
Trade,  Impose  Taxes  or  Burdens  of  payment  on  the 
people,  where  the  Law  doth  not  impose  them;  to  bind 
a  man's  Inheritance,  to  restrain  men  from  suing  in 
what  Court  they  please,  or  to  enhance  the  prizes  of 
Commodities  to  the  hurt  of  the  publick,  and  private 
advantage  of  the  place,  are  void."  So  say  we  all  of 
us.  He  does  not  assume  to  declare  that  it  is  unlawful 
for  a  corporation  to  make  necessities  cheaper:  oil,  for 
example,  or  sugar.  That  would  have  been  a  strange 
thing  for  his  ancient  mind;  and  I  am  glad  he  spells 
"people"  with  a  capital  P.  It  was  prophetic.  So 
much  for  the  gentle  Shepheard.  I  have  quoted  him 
to  show  how  reverently  they  regarded  corporations 
in  the  seventeenth  century.  What  was  one  century's 
meat  is  another  century's  poison. 

A  thin,  rather  shabby  little  volume,  in  a  binding 
of  faded  brown  boards,  without  a  word  to  indicate, 
as  far  as  the  cover  is  concerned,  the  nature  of  the 
contents  or  the  name  of  the  author,  ranks  among  the 
rare,  for  it  contains  the  poems  of  George  Bancroft. 
The  historian,  after  graduating  from  Harvard  in 
1819,  went  to  Europe  as  soon  as  he  had  gained  his 
diploma,  returning  in  1822  with  the  Gottingen  degree 
of  Doctor  of  Philosophy  and  the  idea  that  he  was  a 
poet.  He  was  in  his  twenty-third  year  when  this 
booklet  of  only  seventy-seven  pages  appeared,  bear- 


ABOUT  THE  BOOKSHELVES  19 

ing  the  imprint  "Cambridge:  from  the  University 
Press:  Hillard  and  Metcalf :  1823."  It  is  dedicated 
"to  the  President  of  Harvard  University,  the  author's 
early  benefactor  and  friend."  This  President  was 
Dr.  John  Thornton  Kirkland.  The  themes  of  the 
poems  are  European,  and  the  verse  is  dull,  formal  and 
stilted.  It  is  said  that  Bancroft  in  after  days  en 
deavored  to  suppress  the  book  and  that  a  large  num 
ber  of  copies  were  burned  at  the  house  of  Prescott. 
Donald  G.  Mitchell  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 
the  copy  in  the  Lenox  Library  "shows  numerous  inter 
lineations  and  emendations  in  the  script  of  the  author, 
as  if  he  had  once  intended  a  revised  reprint."  He  was 
wise  to  abandon  the  intention,  if  he  ever  had  it,  What- 
ever  talent  he  may  have  possessed,  it  was  not  poetic. 
Bancroft  was  a  politician,  and  with  all  his  affectations 
and  highly  developed  self-appreciation,  was  a  man 
of  distinction,  a  stately  figure  in  his  later  years.  The 
History,  written  in  the  old-fashioned  way,  shows  great 
research  and  conscientious  labor,  but,  after  all,  it  is 
practically  obsolete  although  the  latest  edition  was 
published  only  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  I  question 
whether  it  is  read  now  to  any  greater  extent  than  are 
the  histories  of  Hume  and  Smollett.  He  loved  sonor 
ous  sentences  and  solemn  platitudes.  It  is  difficult  to 
imagine  a  modern  historian  adorning  his  tale  with 
such  a  purple  patch  as  this,  for  example : 

"What  though  thought  is  invisible  and  even  when 
effective,  seems  as  transient  as  the  wind  that  raised 
the  cloud?  It  is  yet  free  and  indestructible;  can  as 
little  be  bound  in  chains  as  the  aspiring  flame,  and 
when  once  generated,  takes  Eternity  for  its  Guar 
dian."* 


*History,  I,   112. 


20  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

It  might  be  said  that  his  prose  was  poetic  and  his 
poetry  prosy.  He  begins  a  "Farewell  to  Switzerland'1 
thus: 

"Land  of  the  brave !  land  of  the  free !  farewell ! 
Thee  nature  moulded  in  her  wildest  mood, 
Scooped  the  deep  glen,  and  bade  the  mountains  swell 
O'er  the  dark  belt  of  arrow  tannen  wood." 

After  this  exhibition  of  scooping  Nature,  we  en 
counter  a  stanza  which  cannot  be  surpassed,  I  think, 
in  the  records  of  literature. 

"With  my  own  hands  'twas  sweet  to  climb  the  crag, 
Upborne  and  nourished  by  the  mountain  air, 
While  the  lean  mules  would  far  behind  me  lag, 
The  fainting  sons  of  indolence  that  bear." 

The  spectacle  of  Mr.  Bancroft,  climbing  a  crag  by  his 
hands,  unsupported  by  legs  but  sustained  by  air,  fol 
lowed  by  a  number  of  emaciated  mules  and  several 
fainting  "molly-coddles"  would  certainly  have  aroused 
deep  and  soul-stirring  emotions  in  the  bosom  of  the 
beholders. 

Is  it  surprising  that  when  years  had  brought  wis 
dom,  he  endeavored  to  cancel  the  edition?  I  was  on 
the  point  of  saying  that  these  poems  were  not  much 
worse  than  those  which  Americans  usually  produced 
in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century;  but,  on  re 
flection,  I  will  not  go  as  far  as  that:  nothing  was  ever 
quite  as  bad,  unless  it  may  be  the  work  of  Alfred 
Austin,  of  our  own  time  and  in  another  land  than 
ours. 

Yet  for  this  book  I  paid  a  sum  which  would 
have  purchased  for  me  several  well-bound  sets  of  the 
six  volume  History.  I  have  called  it  "rare";  and  in 
one  sense  it  is  a  "rarity",  although  it  is  not  one  upon 


ABOUT  THE  BOOKSHELVES  21 

which  a  learned  book-expert  would  confer  that  title. 
"It  is  hardly  necessary"  Mr.  Powell  writes  in  his  Ex 
cursions  In  Libraria,  "to  observe  that  as  the  mere  un- 
frequent  occurrence  of  a  phenomenon  is  no  index  of 
its  importance,  so  the  fact  that  a  particular  book,  or 
any  other  given  chattel,  is  seldom  to  be  seen  is  no  evi 
dence  of  its  intrinsic  value— should  in  fact  be  rather 
the  reverse,  proportionally  to  our  belief  in  the  intel 
ligence  of  mankind,  although  the  rarity  of  a  book, 
again,  must  be  distinguished  from  the  difficulty  of  ob 
taining  it";  and  he  adds,  quoting  from  the  Axiomata 
Specialia  prefixed  to  Vogt's  Catalogus  Historico-Criti- 
cus  Libromm  Rariorum,  that  rarity  is  by  itself  no 
proof  of  value,  some  of  the  worst  and  some  of  the 
most  worthless  books  being  the  most  difficult  to  pro 
cure.  Strictly  speaking,  the  record  of  the  early  indis 
cretion  of  Bancroft,  historian  and  cabinet  minister,  is 
a  "curiosity"  rather  than  a  "rarity"  in  the  peculiar 
"lingo"  of  the  bibliophile. 

In  wandering  from  shelf  to  shelf  we  find  our  minds 
straying  also  in  a  pleasant,  aimless  way;  and  the  copy 
of  Boaden's  edition  of  Garrick's  Correspondence  re 
calls  to  our  thoughts 

"The  laughter-loving  dame, 
A  matchless  actress,   Clive  her  name" 

the  energetic  Kitty,  Garrick's  "Pivey",  who  used  to 
grow  angry  with  the  great  David  and  when  he  of 
fended  her,  as  he  frequently  did,  "would  drive  him 
about  the  house  like  a  terrier  after  a  rat,  and  abuse 
him  to  his  face,  till  he  was  completely  dumfounded." 
In  one  of  those  modern  compilations  of  biography 
which  seem  to  be  so  popular  in  England,  and  which, 
although  not  always  absolutely  trustworthy,  are  cer- 


22  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

tainly  quite  entertaining,  we  find  an  example  of  what 
some  one  calls  "the  evolution  of  the  bon  mot."  In  a 
sketch  of  John  Hay  published  in  Putnam's  Magazine 
for  June,  1909,  the  tale  is  told  that  the  brilliant  Sec 
retary,  who  had  been  the  victim  of  a  faithless  re 
porter,  was  applied  to  by  the  same  man  for  certain  in 
formation,  not  for  publication.  When  Hay  demurred, 
the  reporter  said,  "I  would  not  violate  your  confi 
dence  for  the  world".  "Not  for  the  World,  per 
haps,"  said  Hay,  "but  you  did  for  the  Journal". 

The  records  show  that  the  substance  of  this  merry 
jest  is  upwards  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  old.  In 
1753  Horace  Walpole  sent  to  a  friend  a  copy  of  Top- 
ham's  paper,  The  World,  in  which  was  an  article 
supposed  to  reflect  upon  himself,  saying:  "I  met 
Mrs.  Clive  two  nights  ago,  and  told  her  I  had  been  in 
the  meadows,  but  would  walk  there  no  more,  for 
there  was  all  the  world.  'Well',  says  she,  'and  don't 
you  like  the  World?  I  hear  it  was  very  clever  last 
Thursday.'  "* 

Occupying  places  not  far  from  the  customary  habi 
tat  of  the  "Comedy  Queens"  are  the  two  volumes  of 
the  English  edition  of  "Mrs.  Brookfield  and  Her 
Circle"  which  was  greeted  with  such  loud  acclaims  of 
praise  when  it  appeared  a  few  years  ago,  but  which  I 
have  the  bad  taste  to  dislike  exceedingly.  Such  a  col 
lection  of  pure  bibble-babble  is  seldom  to  be  met  in 
the  literature  of  our  language.  Thackeray's  letters 
cannot  escape  being  of  interest,  although  most  of  these 
are  disappointing;  really  the  pretty  portrait  of  Jane 
Octavia  Brookfield,  prefixed  to  the  first  volume,  is 
the  best  thing  in  it.  But  William  Henry  Brookfield! 


*Fyvie's  Comedy  Queens  of  the  Georgian  Era,  97-98. 


ABOUT  THE  BOOKSHELVES  23 

No  wonder  that  Jane  flirted  wildly  with  the  Great 
Snob !  Why  in  the  name  of  the  deity  who  protects 
us  against  bores,  if  any  such  deity  exists,  were  William 
Henry's  silly  epistles  inflicted  upon  us?  I  open  at 
random  and  find  such  glorious  passages  as  these : 

"On  Thursday  morning  next— oh,  where  is  Caro 
line?  I  breakfast— where????  At  the  Burlington? 
No.  At  Lord  Lansdowne's?  Pooh!  With  JNO? 
Pshaw!  Upon  Perigord  pie  and  omelette  aux  fines 
herbesf  Du  tout!  With  Lord  John?  Wheu!  Bis 
hop  of  St.  David's?  Never!  With  Prince  Albert? 
Pish!  With  Rogers?  I  can  hardly  frame  my  guess 
ing  lips  to  utter— Yes !  I  hope  he  will  'behave  well' 
—that  is  that  he  will  not  pick  his  teeth  with  my  fork, 


etc." 


The  man  was  always  chattering  about  his  break 
fast.  Who,  pray,  cares  a  jot  about  his  breakfast? 
There  is  an  unpleasant  savor  of  vulgarity  in  his  refer 
ence  to  Rogers,  scarcely  becoming  in  a  clergyman  of 
the  church  of  England  and  the  husband  of  Jane  Oc- 
tavia. 

There  are  revelations  of  Thackeray  which  confirm 
the  impression  that  the  eminent  novelist  was  not  al 
ways  considerate  of  other  and  minor  literary  lights. 
We  all  know  of  his  cruel  and  heartless  treatment  of 
poor  Edmund  Yates;  and  notwithstanding  his  some 
what  intimate  association  with  William  Harrison 
Ainsworth,  he  and  his  little  circle  of  worshippers  take 
no  pains  to  hide  their  contempt  for  the  lesser  novelist 
who  deserved  better  treatment  and  while  he  was  not 
as  great  as  Thackeray  was  a  gentleman  and  had  many 
more  generous  qualities.  We  find  Thackeray  writing 
from  Paris  to  Mrs.  Brookfield  in  1849:— "W.  H. 
Ainsworth  is  here.  We  dined  next  each  other  at  the 
3  Freres  yesterday,  and  rather  fraternized.  He 


24  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

showed  a  friendly  disposition  I  thought,  and  a  desire 
to  forgive  me  my  success,  but  beyond  a  good-humoured 
acquiescence  in  his  good  will,  I  don't  care."  The  de 
voted  female,  falling  in  with  the  mood  of  her  distin 
guished  friend,  answers  a  few  days  later:  UI  am 
amused  at  your  having  Mr.  Ainsworth  at  Paris — he 
was  at  Venice  when  we  were  there,  and  was  always 
called  'Tiger  or  Tig'  by  Uncle  Hallam,  who  did  not 
know  who  he  was  till  he  came  up  one  day  and  proffered 
the  hand  of  fellowship  to  Uncle  H.  on  the  ground  of 
their  mutual  authorship.  'I  am  Mr.  Ainsworth',  as 
if  he  had  been  Herschel  at  the  least,  and  we  sat  to 
gether  in  the  Place  St.  Mark,  eating  ices  and  discuss 
ing  you,  and  I  recollect  saying  you  had  'such  an  af 
fectionate  nature',  which  Mr.  Ainsworth  made  me  re 
peat  about  3  times,  pretending  not  to  hear,  and  I  felt 
I  had  thrown  pearls  before  swine  and  been  unneces 
sarily  frank  in  my  praise  of  you,  and  began  to  think 
he  might  very  possibly  have  a  feeling  of  jealousy 
about  you  as  an  author,  tho'  it  would  be  ludicrously 
presumptuous  in  him — as  of  all  detestable  writing,  his 
is  the  worst,  I  think."  One  scarcely  knows  what  most 
to  admire  in  this  effusion — the  delightful  humor  of 
"Uncle  Hallam",  or  the  scorn  of  the  lady  because  the 
poor  creature  said  "I  am  Mr.  Ainsworth"— rather  a 
natural  remark  under  the  circumstances.  As  nobody 
'knew  who  he  was'  when  he  violated  all  the  canons 
of  British  propriety  by  presuming  to  speak  to  some 
of  his  countrymen,  he  seems  to  have  been  justified  in 
giving  his  real  name  and  not  a  fictitious  one.  When 
Mrs.  Brookfield  made  her  profound  remark  about 
Thackeray's  "affectionate  nature",  we  may  not  won 
der  that  Ainsworth,  who  knew  well  that  Thackeray 
had  nothing  of  the  sort,  asked  to  have  it  repeated. 


ABOUT  THE  BOOKSHELVES  25 

He  was  enjoying  a  little  fun  under  disadvantageous 
conditions.  At  all  events,  however  greatly  Mrs.  Brook- 
field  may  have  despised  him,  the  author  of  "Jack 
Sheppard"  had  no  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  the  rec 
ord  of  his  private  life. 

The  flood  of  biographies  which  flows  from  our 
presses  contains  few  better  works  than  the  Life  of 
Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  by  Mr.  Greenslet,  who  is  a 
model  for  his  kind,  never  wearying  the  reader  by  the 
customary  padding,  but  making  us  wish  that  there 
was  more.  An  agreeable  and  successful  career  was 
that  of  Aldrich,  a  true  artist,  who  kept  his  youth  won 
derfully.  There  is  not  a  dull  line  in  his  letters,  and 
his  literary  judgments  are  clear,  just  and  positive. 
Delicious  are  his  remarks  to  the  telescope-man  on  the 
Common  about  "seeing  Venus  naked  to  the  visible 
eye"  and  to  the  Hibernian  election-officer  in  Boston 
who  asked  him  "Can  you  read  the  Declaration  of  In 
dependence"— "I  can,  sor;  Whin  in  the  coorse  of  hu 
man  evints",  etc.  He  touches  a  chord  of  sympathy 
when  he  speaks  of  some  of  Carlyle's  labored  scold 
ings  as  "the  incoherent  and  explosive  pages  of  the 
sour  Thomas",  and  it  is  refreshing  to  read  his  letter 
to  Woodberry  in  1892  when  he  says  of  his  country 
men:  "They  were  a  promising  race,  they  had  such 
good  chances,  but  their  politicians  would  coddle  the 
worst  elements  for  votes,  and  the  newspapers  would 
appeal  to  the  slums  for  readers";  and  he  quotes  Kip 
ling  on  the  government  of  New  York— "a  despotism 
of  the  alien,  by  the  alien,  for  the  alien,  tempered  with 
occasional  insurrections  of  decent  folk."  A  nation 
rejoicing  in  its  Roosevelts,  its  Bryans  and  its  Hearsts 
may  not  relish  such  mollycoddlish  sentiments,  but 


26  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

down  in  the  hearts  of  thoughtful  men  dwells  a 
conviction  that  Aldrich  was  not  far  wrong.  My  good 
friend  of  the  Hartford  Courant  did  me  the  honor  to 
say  not  long  ago  that  I  was  "a  little  insane"  and  that 
I  am  "never  so  sure  and  never  so  offensive  as  when  I 
am  wrong."  That  pleases  me  greatly.  As  the  American 
says  in  the  Boy  at  Mugby,  "I  larf." 

In  a  very  accessible  corner  of  the  library,  where 
are  assembled  some  of  the  especial  favorites  — an  An 
drew  Lang  or  two,  some  small  volumes  of  Lowell,  a 
book  of  Donald  Mitchell,  some  of  Brownell's  studies, 
and  examples  of  the  charming  art  of  Henry  Van 
Dyke,  Bliss  Perry,  and  the  gentle  Doctor  Crothers— is 
the  small  collection  of  essays  which  Woodrow  Wilson 
called  "Mere  Literature"  before  he  became  a  particu 
larly  polemical  President  of  an  excellent  University. 
A  year  or  so  ago  in  a  speech  delivered  before  an  array 
of  attentive  bankers,  he  said  that  he  had  been  im 
pressed  by  the  fact  that  formerly,  after-dinner  speak 
ers  never  ventured  to  say  anything  very  serious,  but 
felt  obliged  to  pursue  the  jocose:  while  now,  the  peo 
ple  expected  more  serious  things.  It  may  be  so,  and 
the  endless  stream  of  feeble  stories  has  become  un 
welcome,  but  I  doubt  whether,  after  dinner,  we  are 
fit  for  anything  but  pleasant  discourses  about  ordi 
nary  topics,  or  in  a  state  of  mind  appropriate  for  the 
absorption  of  lectures  on  subjects  of  grave  moment.  We 
can  dispense  with  the  anecdotes,  although  I  observe 
that  Doctor  Wilson  usually  has  at  least  three  that  are 
well  worth  listening  to,  and  they  are  always  adminis 
tered  early  in  the  discourse  in  order  to  sugar  the  pill  of 
profundity.  There  is  ground  for  the  belief  that  a  good 
many  of  us  pretend  that  we  want  solid  instruction  after 
dinner  without  being  really  very  hungry  for  it.  I  recall 


ABOUT  THE  BOOKSHELVES  27 

the  puzzled  expression  of  a  jovial  throng  last  winter 
when  an  excellent  speaker  and  eminent  citizen  talked 
about  the  hook-worm  and  the  boll-weevil:  and  I  saw 
the  house  suddenly  emptied  on  a  warm  summer  after 
noon  when  a  dear  old  doctor  of  divinity  began  by 
saying  to  a  perspiring  audience  of  alumni:  "I  will 
now  call  your  attention  to  a  few  of  the  by-products  of 
Christianity  in  Siam."  The  truth  is  that  the  after- 
dinner  speech,  whether  grave  or  gay,  pleases  the 
hearers  most  when  it  is  condensed  within  the  limits 
of  reasonable  brevity. 

We  are  straying  from  the  shelves  to  the  dinner- 
table.  I  plead  guilty  to  the  charge  of  "rambling  along 
with  the  irresponsibility  and  indirection  of  a  child 
playing  hookey,"  preferred  by  my  friend  of  the  Hart 
ford  Courant,  who  called  me  "an  ass",  which  caused 
me  to  exclaim  with  the  amiable  Hebrew  who  was  de 
nounced  as  "a  thief,  a  liar  and  a  scoundrel,"-— "But  out 
side  of  that,  I'm  all  right,  aind  I?" 

This  half  red-morocco  bound  post-octavo  bearing 
the  title  "The  Life  and  Remains  of  Douglas  Jerrold" 
by  his  son  Blanchard  Jerrold,  — a  presentation  copy  to 
Charles  Dickens  with  an  inscription  mentioning  it  as 
"the  first  perfect  copy"  — is  a  reminder  of  a  witty  and 
attractive  personality,  whose  memory  as  an  author  is 
vanishing  despite  "Black  Eyed  Susan"  and  "Mrs. 
Caudle's  Curtain  Lectures",  and  remains  chiefly  be 
cause  of  spoken  jests,  many  of  them  mythical;  but  its 
value  to  me  comes  especially  from  its  association  with 
a  man  of  fine  qualities  and  of  a  noble  nature,  from 
whose  library  it  passed  into  my  possession.  The  im 
pulse  comes  to  me  to  speak  of  a  life-long  friend,  well- 
known  at  the  bar  of  New  York,  with  whom  no  one 
ever  came  into  personal  relations  without  respect  and 


28  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

admiration.  Not  long  after  his  lamented  death,  his 
books,  gathered  with  an  affectionate  and  discriminat 
ing  judgment,  were  sold  at  auction.  Knowing  how  he 
loved  them,  it  gave  me  a  shock  of  pain  to  have  them 
exposed  at  public  vendue.  The  catalogue  of  them 
did  not  afford  many  examples  of  the  ancient  lumber 
of  the  bibliophile— those  treasures  dear  to  old  Dib- 
din  and  sacred  to  the  book-loving  antiquary,  rever 
enced  by  the  few,  but  not  as  comfortable  to  live  with 
as  some  of  the  moderns.  Palseontological  relics  have 
their  value,  but  the  human  interest  of  Thackeray,  of 
Dickens,  of  Leigh  Hunt,  of  Walter  Scott,  and  of  his 
most  dissimilar  fellow  novelist,  Tobias  Smollett,  is 
more  attractive  to  those  who  lay  no  claim  to  the  title 
of  expert.  We  cannot  all  be  Charles  Lambs,  running 
home  at  night  in  ecstasy  because  we  happen  to  have  a 
darling  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  folio  under  our  arms; 
nor  can  we  all  be  Pierpont  Morgans  with  Caxtons 
crowding  our  shelves.  My  friend,  modest  almost  to 
diffidence,  was  not  a  collector  of  Caxtons  or  of  folio 
Shakespeares,  and  he  made  no  pretense  of  familiar 
acquaintance  with  early  examples  although  he  knew 
more  about  them  than  most  people  do.  He  gathered 
around  him  only  what  appealed  most  strongly  to  his 
individual  taste;  and  in  that  he  was  of  my  own  sort, 
although  I  follow  him  hand  passibus  aequis.  In  the 
catalogue  of  his  possessions  the  lover  of  books  dwells 
fondly  on  the  long  list  of  Thackerays,  embracing  the 
Flore  et  Zephyre  and  the  Second  Funeral  of  Napo- 
lean;  the  Dickens  items;  the  first  editions  of  Leigh 
Hunt,  unjustly  remembered  as  the  original  of  Harold 
Skimpole;  the  Cruikshanks,  recalling  the  "crank"  who 
thought  he  wrote  Oliver  Twist  and  was  sure  that  he 
created  Ainsworth;  the  Scotts,  with  their  treasures  of 


ABOUT  THE  BOOKSHELVES  29 

autograph  letters,  which  particularly  amuse  me  be 
cause  their  owner  used  to  make  fun  of  my  autographs; 
the  tall  copy  of  Shelley's  Prometheus  Unbound,  re 
minding  us  of  the  man  who  said  that  he  preferred  it  in 
the  original  binding;  the  Swifts,  the  early  Tennysons, 
and  also  the  Surtees  and  the  memoirs  of  that  reckless 
"old  sport",  John  Mytton,  who  would  be  impossible 
in  this  century  and  who  ought  to  have  been  impossible 
in  any  civilized  country.  It  is  not  uninteresting 
to  note  that  in  the  translation  of  the  Memoirs  of  Cas 
anova  there  are  "several  sections  loose".  In  short, 
the  catalogue  described  the  collection  made  by  a  man 
of  culture,  not  because  of  a  fondness  for  some  special 
subject  or  of  a  devotion  to  the  accumulation  of  rari 
ties  merely  on  account  of  their  rareness,  but  because 
they  pleased  him.  To  the  auction  block  we  must  all 
come  at  last,  I  fancy;  such  is  the  fate  of  the  collections 
we  spend  our  lives  in  making.  We  may  only  hope 
that  some  of  the  things  we  loved  may  pass  into  the 
hands  of  those  who  will  be  as  fond  of  them  as  we 
were,  and  who  may  find  added  worth  in  them  because 
they  were  once  the  objects  of  our  affection. 

But  the  prospect  of  the  inevitable  dispersion  of  the 
assembled  companions  does  not  sadden  my  little  tours 
about  the  book-shelves. 

"All   round  my  room  my  silent  servants  wait  — 
My  friends  in  every  season,  bright  and  dim: 
Angels  and  seraphim 
Come  down  and  murmur  to  me, 

Sweet  and  low 
And  spirits  of  the  skies  all  come  and  go 

Early  and  late." 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  AUTOGRAPH 

SOME  years  ago   a  gentleman  who  described 
himself  as  an  "autographomaniac"  and  who 
manifestly  possessed  what  Sir  William  Gil 
bert   called   "a   pretty   taste    for   paradox," 
took  up  the  cudgels  in  the  Independent,  on 
behalf  of  the  unpopular  persons  who  "write  for  auto 
graphs,"  and  while  he  confessed  that  his  pursuit  was 
"shocking,"  he  was  brave  enough  to  declare  that  he 
was  "willing  to  take  the  consequences."     I  fully  agree 
with  him  in  his  characterization  of  the  nefarious  habit, 
and  am  willing  to  submit  his  case,  as  he  makes  it,  to 
the  tribunal  of  public  opinion,  without  argument  on 
behalf  of  the  respondent.     He  is  welcome  to  the  con 
sequences,  whatever  they  may  be.     I  suspect  that  his 
screed  was  not  meant  to  be  taken  very  seriously,  and 
that  he  was  emulating  DeQuincey's  treatise  on  "Mur 
der  as  a  Fine  Art."     He  has  incited  me  to  utter  a  few 
more  words  about  autographs,  because  he  did  me  the 
honor  to  say:   "Such  distinguished  collectors  as  Dr.  G. 
Birkbeck  Hill  and  Mr.  Adrian  Joline  turn  up  their 
noses  at  my  kind,"  and  he  made  some  jocose  but  un 
worthy  reflections  upon  my  method  of  cultivating  my 
hobby.     He  betrayed  himself  as  not  a  real  collector, 
as   only   an   amateur,    who   had   not   approached   the 
shrine  with  proper  reverence  and  preparation.      Dr. 
Birkbeck  Hill  was  in  his  life  time  a   scholar  and  a 
clever  literary  man,  devoted  to  the  altar  of  Samuel 
Johnson,  and  he  wrote  a  pleasant  book  called  "Talks 
About  Autographs,"  but  he  was  not  a  collector  in  the 

31 


32  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

ordinary  acceptation  of  the  term,  and  I  am  by  no 
means  a  "distinguished  collector,"  although  I  thank 
the  Maniac  for  conferring  upon  me  a  title  as  honorable 
as  it  is  undeserved.  What  amused  me  most  about 
the  ravings  of  the  Maniac  was  the  assertion  that  col 
lectors  of  my  own  way  of  thinking  buy  at  auctions 
and  through  dealers  "dry-as-dust  letters  written  for 
the  most  part  by  men  long  since  gone  to  their  fathers," 
while  the  "pestilential  nuisances,"  to  borrow  another 
Gilbertian  phrase,  confine  their  attention  to  the  auto 
graphs  of  the  living,  and  especially  prize  the  peppery 
responses  they  receive  from  persecuted  greatness.  It 
reminds  us  of  the  ancient  fable  about  the  Oxford 
guide  who  exhibited  to  his  party  the  eminent  Jowett, 
the  noted  head  of  Balliol  College,  wrathful  and  in 
dignant  at  the  assault  upon  his  study  window,  and  of 
the  individual  whose  favorite  boast  was  that  he  had 
been  soundly  kicked  by  a  Royal  Duke.  "Such  and  so 
various  are  the  tastes  of  men." 

Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  in  his  Ponkapog  Papers, 
speaks  of  "the  average  autograph  hunter  with  his 
purposeless  insistence"— "the  innumerable  unknown 
who  'collect'  autographs  as  they  would  postage 
stamps,  with  no  interest  in  the  matter  beyond  the  de 
sire  to  accumulate  as  many  as  possible."  He  relates 
a  story  of  a  fellow-author  (I  suspect  it  was  Aldrich 
himself)  who  was  asked  by  a  bereaved  widow  and 
mother  to  copy  for  her  some  lines  from  his  poem  on 
the  death  of  a  child,  to  comfort  her  for  the  loss  of  her 
little  girl.  Two  months  later  he  found  his  manuscript 
with  a  neat  price  attached  to  it  in  a  second-hand  book 
shop.  I  am  well  pleased  to  be  excluded  from  that  class 
of  autograph  hunters  and  I  do  not  envy  the  Maniac 
who  cares  to  array  himself  in  such  unworthy  company. 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  AUTOGRAPH   33 

We  occasionally  buy  the  letters  of  the  living,  and 
some  years  ago  the  newspapers  were  quite  stirred  up 
by  the  sale  of  a  letter  from  the  late  Edward  VII. — then 
Prince  of  Wales — to  Mrs.  Langtry,  for  the  respecta 
ble  price  of  ninety  dollars.  Even  the  journals  which 
make  pretensions  to  decency  and  good  taste  broke 
forth  in  clamor,  one  of  them  sneering  at  the  alleged 
value  of  collecting  as  a  preservative  of  literary  and 
historical  treasures,  and  another  announcing  with 
oracular  finality  that  the  incident  proved  the  "snob 
bishness"  of  collectors.  All  these  deductions  based 
upon  insufficient  premises  are  the  offspring  of  imper 
fect  intelligence  and  the  evidence  of  that  tendency  to 
hasty  judgment  which  marks  the  utterances  of  the  un 
informed  and  unreflecting  person.  The  chances  are 
that  the  bidder  was  unconsciously  competing,  through 
an  agent,  with  some  rival  who  had  given  an  order 
without  a  limit;  or  that  the  owner  was  making  what  is 
known  in  Wall  Street  as  a  "washed  sale"  in  order  to 
establish  a  market  price  for  a  number  of  similar  speci 
mens  of  royal  autography.  I  heard  a  rumor  that  a 
faithless  maid  of  the  famous  actress  stole  a  quantity 
of  letters  from  her  mistress,  and  that  the  vendee  was 
endeavoring  to  "realize"  on  the  ill-gotten  booty.  But 
whether  these  conjectures  are  well  founded  or  not,  It 
is  certainly  quite  easy  to  understand  why  a  letter  from 
so  distinguished  a  personage,  to  a  noted  beauty,  an 
ornament  of  the  stage,  should  possess  an  interest  for  a 
collector  wholly  apart  from  any  element  of  snobbish 
ness.  Nothing  is  more  delusive  than  the  auction  price 
of  books  or  autographs.  Long  ago  at  a  Philadelphia 
sale,  a  lot  of  Trumbull's  sketches  for  his  great  pic 
ture  of  the  Battle  of  Princeton  was  offered,  and  I 
instructed  an  agent  to  buy  one  or  more,  fixing  a  limit 


34  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

on  the  whole  or  any  part.  It  happened  that  my  friend 
Junius— not  the  author  of  the  famous  letters— wanted 
those  very  sketches,  and  as  a  result  of  my  uninformed 
and  unwise  competition,  they  cost  him  about  $800  al 
though  they  would  have  been  dear  at  half  that  sum. 
This  circumstance  convinced  me  that  it  is  a  mistake  to 
estimate  real  value  by  casual  auction  prices. 

Before  me  lies  a  faded  pamphlet,  a  copy  of  "The 
Athenaeum,  or  Spirit  of  the  English  Magazines," 
published  in  Boston,  on  January  i,  1828,  containing 
articles  unblushingly  appropriated  from  British  peri 
odicals  in  the  days  when  our  own  were  feeble,  few  and 
far  between.  Among  them  is  one  on  "Autographs," 
beginning  with  these  words:  "In  direct  opposition  to 
the  established  maxim,  'A  living  dog  is  better  than  a 
dead  lion,'  the  autograph  of  a  dead  man  is  better 
than  that  of  a  living  one;  indeed,  the  longer  a  man 
has  been  dead,  the  better  the  autograph."  The  genial 
Maniac— who  is  not  as  mad  as  he  pretends  to  be— 
may  whimsically  dispute  this  proposition,  but  it  is  an 
eternal  verity,  far  beyond  the  power  of  any  of  us  to 
controvert  successfully.  As  with  the  pictures  of  the 
famous  artists,  the  price  increases  when  the  source  of 
supply  is  cut  off,  and  the  value  is  measured  by  the 
price. 

I  am  glad  to  have  my  friend  draw  upon  himself 
the  lightning  of  great  men's  wrath,  because  some  day 
the  thunderers  will  be  dead,  and  his  specimens,  heroi 
cally  gathered  in  defiance  of  their  indignant  bolts,  will 
be  lovingly  cherished  by  disciples  of  the  cult  whose 
coat-tails  are  immune  to  the  kicks  of  enraged  states 
men  and  authors.  It  is  true,  nevertheless,  that  mere 
"autographs  by  request"  are  of  little  value  in  the 
eyes  of  a  wise  collector.  Even  when  they  have  the 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  AUTOGRAPH       3  5 

spice   of   hearty   resentment   they   are   by   no    means 
precious. 

In  a  curiously  unappreciative  paper  concerning  the 
beloved  Autocrat,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  included 
in  "Adventures  Among  Books,"  Andrew  Lang  says 
of  the  delectable  Doctor:  uHe  was  even  too  good- 
humored,  and  the  worst  thing  I  have  ever  heard  of  him 
is  that  he  could  not  say  'no'  to  an  autograph  hunter." 
Surely  Lang  intended  this  accusation  to  be  a  gentle 
commendation,  but  I  fear  the  casual  reader  will  fail 
to  detect  the  subtle  humor  of  it.  Treating  it  seri 
ously,  for  the  casual  reader's  sake,  I  own  that  I  am 
unable  to  find  in  the  amiable  weakness  any  good  rea 
son  for  criticism  or  for  censure.  I  admit  that  if  these 
pests  of  great  men  had  made  demands  upon  the  Doc 
tor's  purse  they  would  have  been  seeking  only  trash, 
according  to  the  dictum  of  the  author  of  "Othello" 
whoever  that  author  may  have  been — and  that  by  ask 
ing  for  his  autograph  they  were  endeavoring  to  take 
from  him  his  good  name,  but  only  as  inscribed  upon 
a  sheet  of  paper  and  by  no  means  making  him  "poor 
indeed."  I  am  convinced  that  the  sneers  and  cavils  of 
those  who  pronounce  harsh  judgments  upon  the  seek 
ers  of  autographs  are  only  the  manifestations  of  ig 
norant  illiberality  like  the  old  complaints  which  are 
uttered  from  time  to  time  about  uncut  books,  deckel 
edges,  first  editions,  and  dainty  bindings.  These  de 
nunciations  resemble  the  outcries  of  those  who  pos 
sess  not  the  fragrant  automobile  against  the  plutocrat 
who  monopolizes  our  highways.  When  we  are  not 
of  his  class,  we  scold  him  bitterly,  but  if  we  come  to 
that  state  of  affluence  which  enables  us  to  join  his 
ranks,  we  quickly  assume  his  autocratic  demeanor  to 
wards  those  who  merely  cumber  the  earth  with  their 


3 6  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

slow-moving  vehicles,  horse-drawn,  crawling  along 
without  benefit  of  gasoline  or  electricity.  Probably 
the  Merovingian  kings  with  their  ox-chariots  were 
fiercely  hostile  to  the  swift  pacer  or  trotter.  "It  all 
depends,"  as  they  say  in  the  Mikado.  It  may  be  in 
ferred  that  I  do  not  love  the  motor-car.  If  I  need 
rapidity  of  motion,  I  prefer  to  travel  in  the  cab  of  an 
engine  on  the  Twentieth  Century  Limited.  I  do  not 
dote  upon  polo  or  bridge,  but  I  keep  silent  about  them 
because  I  know  that  my  neighbor's  tastes  may  be  law 
fully  indulged  whatever  I  may  think  about  them  or 
whether  or  not  they  accord  with  mine.  As  the  pleas 
ant  writer  of  The  Upton  Letters  remarks,  "It  does 
not  matter  how  much  people  disagree,  if  they  will  only 
admit  in  their  minds  that  every  one  has  a  right  to  a 
point  of  view,  and  that  their  own  does  not  necessarily 
rule  out  all  others."  I  am  disposed  to  love  my  neigh 
bors  as  myself,  as  good  people  are  instructed  to  do, 
but  the  task  is  often  arduous.  I  ask  only  that  he  will 
patiently  indulge  me  in  my  fondness  for  my  favorite 
books  and  my  pet  autographs,  which  cannot  possibly 
interfere  with  his  personal  comfort  as  his  automobile 
does  with  mine. 

Almost  everyone  who  reads  and  who  really  thinks, 
has  a  pleasure  in  looking  at  autographs.  In  the  great 
library  of  the  Vatican  I  have  observed  the  eager  in 
terest  with  which  the  visitors  gaze  upon  the  hand 
writing  of  Henry  VIII,  of  Anne  Boleyn,  and  of  Mar 
tin  Luther, — oddly  preserved  in  a  place  where  one 
would  scarcely  expect  to  find  it.  The  throngs  who  con 
template  the  wonderful  collections  in  the  British 
Museum  testify  to  the  fascination  which  clings  to  the 
actual  pen-tracings  made  by  men  and  women  of  his 
toric  fame,  and  the  multitudes  who  visit  the  Library 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  AUTOGRAPH   37 

of  Congress  in  Washington  linger  over  the  glass- 
covered  cabinets  where  the  letters  of  our  Presidents, 
as  well  as  of  many  other  noted  public  men,  grouped 
with  their  portraits,  are  admirably  arranged  for  in 
spection  by  the  curious. 

The  interest  of  many  examples  in  collections  is 
purely  autographic— that  is  to  say,  the  simple  fact 
that  the  lines  were  inscribed  by  the  particular  person 
is  the  chief  stimulant  of  the  imagination.  It  may  be 
merely  a  formal  document  to  which  only  the  signa 
ture  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  or  of  Napoleon,  or  of 
Charles  I.  of  England,  or  of  Washington  is  affixed;  it 
may  be  nothing  but  a  line  or  two  penned  by  Samuel 
Johnson,  or  by  Dean  Swift,  by  William  Pitt  or  by 
Mazarin  or  Richelieu, — the  effect  is  produced,  and  no 
one  who  has  a  spark  of  fancy  can  fail  to  gain  some 
pleasure  from  the  contemplation,  for  example,  of  an 
official  paper  bearing  the  names  of  Charles  II.  and 
Samuel  Pepys,  or  a  parchment  scroll  subscribed  by 
Oliver  Cromwell.  It  is  a  simple  matter  to  advance 
from  this  point  to  the  delight  of  reading  original  let 
ters  and  manuscripts  of  intrinsic  merit,  and  with  the 
charm  of  reading  comes  the  joy  of  possession.  It  is 
a  joy  whose  nature  is  absolutely  different  from  that 
which  a  bibliophile  experiences  when  he  gloats  over 
his  precious  "first  edition,"  or  hugs  to  his  bosom  his 
invaluable  Caxton.  Sometimes  there  may  be  a  sense 
of  pride  in  the  ownership  of  a  thing  which  no  one  else 
may  own,  and  we  may  detect  the  note  of  triumph 
sounded  in  the  boast  occasionally  uttered  by  even  the 
most  modest  of  my  brethren— "No  specimen,  sir,  in 
the  British  Museum."  But  the  real  delight  is  in  the 
feeling  of  companionship  with  the  man  who  wrote 
the  letter  or  the  book.  The  true  autograph  hunter 


38  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

may  live  with  Lamb,  talk  with  Macaulay,  listen  to 
Dr.  Johnson,  gaze  upon  Thackeray  at  the  Garrick, 
and  stand  in  the  presence  of  Pope  and  Dryden.  If 
these  are  the  results  of  devotion  to  "musty,  dusty 
stuff,"  then  let  my  amiable  lunatic  of  Madison,  Wis 
consin,  in  the  immortal  words  of  Patrick  Henry, 
"make  the  most  of  it." 

It  is  strange  that  the  autograph  collector  is  scorned 
and  condemned  by  the  majority.  Perhaps  it  is  because 
most  men  do  not  reflect  about  that  which  is  of  no  im 
mediate  interest  to  them.  It  may  be  that  it  arises  from 
the  resentment  which  many  are  apt  to  feel  towards 
the  few  who  are  devoted  to  some  rather  exclusive  pur 
suit:  for  the  concrete  autograph  itself  usually  arouses 
some  attention  among  intelligent  persons.  I  have  an 
idea  that  the  depreciation  comes  from  a  certain  affec 
tation  on  the  part  of  great  men,  and  the  shallow  ac 
quiescence  of  the  careless  newspaper  scribblers  in  what 
they  deem  to  be  the  popular  judgment.  Like  the  early 
Christians,  we  survive  our  persecutions.  We  know  that 
popularity  is  a  poor  test  of  merit.  It  would  be  a  sad 
day  if  collecting  should  ever  become  popular,  as  golf 
ing  is  and  as  "bicycling"  was.  I  have  a  keen  sympathy 
for  the  English  schoolmaster  who  said  that  golf  and 
drink  were  the  two  curses  of  the  country. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  cause,  it  is  undeniably  true 
that  plain  persons,  and  even  some  who  consider  them 
selves  far  superior  to  plain  persons,  are  filled  with  un 
holy  glee  whenever  they  find  an  opportunity  to  utter 
expressions  of  contempt  and  derision  concerning  the  pur 
suit  of  the  autograph.  These  expressions  are  in  most 
cases  coupled  with  sarcastic  allusions  to  postage  stamps, 
and  every  man  appears  to  believe  that  the  idea  of  asso 
ciating  a  stamp  collector  and  an  autograph  collector  is 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  AUTOGRAPH   39 

entirely  original  with  him.  I  have  amused  myself  from 
time  to  time  by  recounting  some  of  these  censorious  ob 
servations  and  in  trying  to  fathom  the  mystery  of  their 
genesis,  while  venturing  mildly  to  demonstrate  their  in 
justice.  I  confess  that  one  of  the  latest  examples  which 
has  been  brought  to  my  attention  has  given  me  more 
pain  and  surprise  than  any  of  its  predecessors.  We  have 
been  assailed  and  vilified  in  the  house  of  our  friends, 
and  if  one  may  be  permitted  to  use  a  trite  expression, 
attributed  to  a  personage  whose  autograph  would  adorn 
even  the  British  Museum,  one  may  well  cry  out,"Et  tu 
Brute!" 

No  collector  deserving  the  name  is  unaware  of  the 
proud  eminence  which  has  always  been  awarded  to  the 
Reverend  William  Buel  Sprague,  D.  D.,  the  grand 
father  of  us  all,  who  from  his  Albanian  eyrie  dis 
pensed  autograph  letters  throughout  the  land,  and  with 
delightful  liberality  shared  his  stores  with  his  brethren 
of  the  cult,  while  reserving  for  his  own  a  splendid  mass 
of  rare  Americana.  The  enthusiastic  Draper  says  of 
him  that  he  "fills  a  distinguished  and  unique  place  in  the 
history  of  American  literature  and  is  accorded  on  all 
hands  the  highest  rank  among  the  early  American  au 
tograph  collectors."  Was  he  not  the  man  who  furnished 
to  Doctor  Emmet  that  peerless  Lynch  letter,  the  envy 
of  all  collectors?  I  have  heard  rumors  of  another  let 
ter,  said  to  belong  to  Mr.  J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  but  I 
have  my  doubts.  From  the  description  of  it  given  to 
me,  I  think  it  must  be  the  one  which  is  printed  in  Dra 
per's  "Autographic  Collections"  and  is  shown  to  be  a 
forgery.  I  had  acquired  a  reverence  for  the  worthy 
Doctor  equal  to  that  with  which  the  devotee  of  Chris 
tian  Science  regards  Mrs.  Mary  Baker  Eddy,  or  to  that 
which  we  are  assured  on  unimpeachable  authority,  the 


40  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

heathen  exhibits  when  he  bows  down  to  wood  and  stone. 
But  a  kind  Bostonian,  actuated  by  generous  impulse, 
although  perhaps  not  wholly  lacking  in  sarcastic  humor, 
once  gave  me  a  book  called  "Visits  to  European  Celeb 
rities,  by  William  B.  Sprague,  D.  D.,"  from  the  library 
of  Governor  Charles  H.  Bell,  of  New  Hampshire, 
which  contains  an  original  autograph  letter  of  the  ex 
cellent  dominie,  written  undoubtedly  to  Bell  himself. 
The  astonishing  tenor  of  this  letter  leads  me  to  pre 
sent  it  in  all  its  hideousness: 

"Albany,  18  April,  '68. 

"My  dear  sir:  Your  kind  letter  has  set  me  to 
looking  through  a  part  of  my  collection  to  see  if  I 
could  find  duplicates  of  any  of  your  names  on  your 
list,  and  the  result,  as  you  will  see,  is  a  very  meagre 
contribution.  Such  as  they  are,  however,  you  are  en 
tirely  welcome  to  them.  As  a  friend,  I  would  advise 
you  to  have  as  little  to  do  with  an  autograph  collector 
as  possible,  for  though  there  are  some  honorable  ex 
ceptions,  yet,  as  a  class,  I  think  they  rank  A  No.  i 
in  point  of  meanness. 

"Very  truly  yours, 

W.  B.  SPRAGUE." 

I  acknowledge  that  on  the  first  perusal  of  this  re 
markable  epistle  I  was  stricken  with  the  sort  of  stupor 
which  used  to  overcome  the  Virgilian  hero  when  he 
succumbed  to  circumstances  and  "vox  faudbus  haesit." 
After  having  battled  with  all  the  indictments  found  by 
the  grand  jury  of  the  public,  the  charges  of  covetous- 
ness,  selfishness,  impudence,  silliness,  uselessness,  born 
of  the  plenitude  of  popular  misinformation,  and  after 
what  I  had  vainly  deemed  my  triumphant  pleas  to  those 
indictments,  sustained,  as  I  fondly  imagined,  by  the 
courts  of  highest  jurisdiction — to  be  confronted  now 
with  an  accusation  based  upon  the  shameless  confession 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  AUTOGRAPH       4 1 

of  a  co-conspirator,  the  shocking  admissions  of  a  parti- 
ceps  criminis,  the  State's  evidence  of  a  faithless  asso 
ciate,  made  my  heart  fail  me  for  a  moment,  and  my  soul 
to  grow  sad  as  I  said,  "but  it  was  even  thou,  my  com 
panion,  my  guide,  and  mine  own  familiar  friend!"  Figu 
ratively,  Doctor  Sprague  was  all  of  that  to  me,  although 
I  must  own  that  his  birth  antedates  mine  a  little  over  half 
a  century,  and  I  never  had  the  good  fortune  to  enjoy 
his  actual  personal  acquaintance.  It  would  not  have  as 
tonished  me  more  had  Doctor  Emmet  denounced  the 
Signers,  Gratz  or  Greenough  sneered  at  Continental 
Congressmen,  or  Benjamin  proclaimed  the  folly  of  buy 
ing  autographs  in  the  market.  If  Mr.  Hearst  had  nomi 
nated  Mayor  Gaynor  for  the  Presidency,  or  if  the  New 
York  Tribune  had  blazed  out  in  condemnation  of  pro 
tective  tariffs,  they  would  not  have  given  me  as  serious 
a  shock  as  did  this  utterance  of  the  venerable  Sprague. 
But  there  lies  the  record,  and  with  an  effort  I  summon 
what  remains  of  my  intellect  in  order  to  apply  myself  to 
a  calm  consideration  of  this  unexpected  situation. 

We  are  at  a  disadvantage  at  the  outset,  because  the 
evidence  upon  which  the  charge  is  based  has  not  been 
submitted  to  our  scrutiny.  A  good  deal  of  the  merit  of 
a  cause  depends  upon  the  nature  of  the  proof  presented 
in  its  support.  It  is  not  difficult  to  formulate  a  com 
plaint,  but  it  is  sometimes  hard  to  bring  the  witnesses 
up  to  the  necessities  of  the  case.  I  once  had  a  client 
who  would  come  to  the  office  just  before  the  trial 
of  his  action  and,  rubbing  his  hands  in  a  genial  way,  cry 
out,  "Well,  what  do  you  want  us  to  swear  to?"  But 
he  was  an  exception,  for  they  generally  exhibit  a  strong 
disinclination  to  testify  to  the  point  and  make  strenuous 
efforts  to  evade  it.  It  would  have  been  a  pleasure  to 
question  the  frank  and  honest  Doctor,  but  unfortunately 


42  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

he  is  beyond  the  reach  of  cross-examination.  What 
tales  he  might  have  unfolded!  Alas,  they  are  buried 
with  him.  We  may  only  analyze  the  accusation  and 
endeavor  to  determine  its  justice  or  its  injustice  by 
methods  which  are  not  permitted  by  the  rules  of  evi 
dence. 

Meanness  means  the  mean.  The  mean  is  the  low- 
minded,  base,  wanting  in  integrity,  poor,  pitiful,  stingy. 
Meanness  is  a  low  state,  poorness,  want  of  dignity  or 
excellence,  want  of  liberality.  I  must  be  right  about 
this,  for  I  am  quoting  from  a  standard  dictionary.  On 
behalf  of  the  fraternity  of  autograph  collectors,  and 
without  a  fee— unprofessional  as  it  may  seem — I  enter 
a  plea  of  "not  guilty."  When  Doctor  Sprague  penned 
those  fatal  lines,  he  was  suffering  no  doubt  from  some 
experience  of  a  painful  nature  with  a  pseudo-collector, 
a  mere  Jeremy  Diddler  of  a  collector,  who  being  aware 
of  his  sweet  simplicity  of  character  and  willingness  to 
help  the  aspiring  neophyte,  had  attempted  to  impose 
upon  him  for  purposes  of  sordid  gain. 

One  great  difficulty  which  a  reasonable  man  en 
counters  in  the  course  of  his  life— and  I  consider  myself 
the  only  truly  reasonable  man  of  my  acquaintance— is 
the  unfortunate  tendency  of  other  men  to  indulge  in 
generalizations.  Almost  all  generalizations  are  dan 
gerous,  fallacious,  and  fraught  with  violations  of  the 
rules  of  logic.  Journeying  in  Canada  some  years  ago 
in  the  society  of  an  eminent  author  of  our  day,  we  met 
a  lad  who  suffered  from  a  bad  cough,  and  some  hours 
later  we  came  upon  another  boy  who  was  laboring  un 
der  a  similar  affliction.  My  literary  friend  thereupon 
delivered  himself  of  this  solemn  judgment:  "All  small 
boys  in  Canada  have  coughs."  We  are  familiar  with 
the  story  of  the  Englishman  visiting  Germany  for  the 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  AUTOGRAPH       43 

first  time,  and  after  a  single  hour's  experience  in  a  rail 
way  carriage,  noting  in  his  diary:  UA11  Germans  have 
red  hair  and  are  named  Muller."  The  Psalmist  said 
in  his  haste  that  all  men  are  liars.  I  can  not  help  think 
ing  that  Doctor  Sprague  said  what  he  did  about  col 
lectors  in  like  haste  and  with  less  justification,  because 
all  men,  except  George  Washington  and  Mark  Twain, 
have  lied  at  times,  whereas  I  am  confident  that  col 
lectors,  as  a  rule,  are  not  mean  and  that  the  mean  ones 
are  the  dishonorable  exceptions.  But  although  I  hold 
a  brief  for  the  defence,  I  intend  to  be  fair.  I  am  in 
formed  that  no  less  a  person  than  Doctor  Thomas  Ad 
dis  Emmet  himself— clarum  et  venerabile  nomen— as 
serts  that  Sprague  was  well  within  the  truth  when  he 
stigmatized  collectors  in  the  manner  set  forth  in  the 
Bell  letter;  that  he  was  victimized  right  and  left  by  peo 
ple  who  never  compensated  him  for  material  that  he  sold 
to  them;  and  that  he  declared  that  Emmet  and  the  late 
T.  Bailey  Myers  were  the  only  customers  who  paid  him. 

It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  Doctor 
Sprague  was  not  a  dealer,  a  business  man,  with  a 
tangible  shop  and  a  real,  perceptible  price-list.  Per 
haps  the  recipients  of  his  autographic  contributions 
thought  that  they  were  donees  and  not  vendees.  Dif 
fident  persons,  strangers,  might  well  hesitate  about 
offering  filthy  lucre  to  a  learned  Doctor  of  Divinity, 
unless  he  does  as  merchants  do  and  gives  notice  that 
he  is  in  trade,  by  judicious  advertisement.  I  doubt 
whether  he  mentioned  prices  or  sent  a  bill,  but  if  he 
expected  payment  he  should  have  resorted  to  the  or 
dinary  methods  of  business. 

Assuming  that  Doctor  Sprague  has  testified  that 
Emmet  and  Myers  were  the  only  persons  who  consti 
tute  the  "honorable  exceptions"  referred  to  in  the 


44  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

Bell  letter,  let  us  subject  the  complainant  to  such  cross- 
examination  as  under  our  severe  difficulties,  we  may 
resort  to  in  aid  of  our  clients.  Doctor,  did  you  ever 
know  one  Israel  W.  Tefft,  of  Georgia?  Is  it  not  a 
fact  that  when  you  visited  him  in  1830  he  had  only 
about  thirty  letters  of  Signers,  but  that  he  offered  to 
give  you  such  as  you  needed— and  you  took  them? 
Did  he  not  in  1845  present  to  you  one  or  more  Lynch 
signatures  to  enable  you  to  complete  your  additional 
sets?  If  the  Doctor's  devoted  admirer,  Lyman  C. 
Draper,  is  telling  the  truth,  the  answers  must  be  "yes." 
Now,  I  show  you  a  letter  in  your  unmistakable  chi- 
rography,  dated  at  Flushing,  October  16,  1874,  and 
call  your  attention  to  this  language:  "When  I  began 
to  collect  autographs,  I  was  the  intimate  friend  and 
correspondent  of  Robert  Gilmour  of  your  city,  the 
first  collector  I  ever  knew,  but  it  is  long  since  his  col 
lection  was  sold  and  I  suppose  scattered  to  the 
winds."  I  will  ask  you  now  whether  you  were  not 
mistaken  in  your  statement  to  Doctor  Emmet,  and  if 
the  names  of  Tefft  and  of  Gilmour— your  "intimate 
friend"— should  not  be  excluded  from  the  category 
of  "mean  collectors,"  thus  doubling  the  number  of 
your  "honorable  exceptions?" 

I  think  I  will  not  call  any  witnesses,  because  I  have 
none  excepting  myself.  Truly,  my  own  experience 
has  led  me  to  a  conclusion  quite  different  from  that 
which  the  dear  old  Doctor  announced  so  dogmatically. 
That  experience,  I  admit,  has  not  been  extensive,  but 
there  has  been  a  great  change  in  autograph  hunting 
since  the  Doctor's  day  and  generation.  Autograph 
collecting  in  this  country  was  then  in  its  infancy;  the 
collecting  of  to-day  bears  a  similar  relation  to  that  of 
fifty  years  ago  which  the  telephone  bears  to  the  post 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  AUTOGRAPH       45 

or  the  Chicago  Flyer  to  the  deliberate  trains  of  the 
old  Camden  and  Amboy.  It  has  been  my  good  for 
tune  to  find  the  genuine  collectors  fair-minded,  gen 
erous,  and  sympathetic,  and  I  have  often  profited  by 
their  generosity.  I  hesitate  to  "name  names"  but  per 
haps  I  may  be  pardoned  for  mentioning  the  late  El 
liot  Danforth,  and  also  the  scholarly  Boston  lawyer, 
Charles  P.  Greenough.  Laurence  Hutton  too,  was 
liberal  and  I  am  grateful  to  him,  although  I  do  not 
accept  his  peculiar  views  about  autographs.  As  there 
is  a  "science  falsely  so  called,"  there  are  collectors 
who  do  not  deserve  the  honorable  name;  and  I  am 
sure  that  if  I  could  summon  the  shade  of  Sprague  to 
this  mortal  sphere  he  would  readily  admit  that  his 
incautious  assertion  was  the  result  of  some  temporary 
obscuration  of  the  mind  and  that  he  did  not  really 
mean  it. 

Returning  to  the  subject  of  the  joys  of  the  collector, 
we  cannot  forget  that  no  less  famous  a  man  than  Na 
thaniel  Hawthorne  has  recorded  his  views.  When 
he  had  before  him  a  book  containing  letters  of  states 
men  and  soldiers  of  the  Revolution,  he  put  himself  in 
the  noble  order  of  autograph  lovers.  I  cite  his  very 
words,  because,  much  to  my  astonishment,  I  find  that 
he  expresses  my  own  feelings  much  more  eloquently 
than  I  am  able  to  do.  "They  are  profitable  reading 
on  a  quiet  afternoon,"  he  said,  "and  in  a  mode  with 
drawn  from  too  intimate  relation  with  the  present 
time,  so  that  we  can  glide  backward  some  three-quart 
ers  of  a  century,  and  surround  ourselves  with  the 
ominous  sublimity  of  circumstances  that  then  frowned 
upon  the  writers.  *  *  *  They  are  magic  scrolls, 
if  read  in  the  right  spirit.  The  roll  of  the  drum  and 
the  fanfare  of  the  trumpet  is  latent  in  some  of  them; 


46  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

and  in  others,  an  echo  of  the  oratory  that  resounded 
in  the  old  halls  of  the  Continental  Congress,  at  Phila 
delphia;  or  the  words  may  come  to  us  as  with  the  liv 
ing  utterance  of  one  of  those  illustrious  men,  speak 
ing  face  to  face,  in  friendly  communion.  Strange,  that 
the  mere  identity  of  paper  and  ink  should  be  so  pow 
erful.  The  same  thoughts  might  look  cold  and  in 
effectual  in  a  printed  book.  Human  nature  craves  a 
certain  materialism,  and  clings  pertinaciously  to  what 
is  tangible,  as  if  that  were  of  more  importance  than 
the  spirit  accidentally  involved  in  it.  And,  in  truth, 
the  original  manuscript  has  always  something  which 
print  itself  must  inevitably  lose.  An  erasure,  even  a 
blot,  a  casual  irregularity  of  hand,  and  all  such  little 
imperfections  of  mechanical  executions,  bring  us  close 
to  the  writer,  and  perhaps  convey  some  of  those  sub 
tle  intimations  for  which  language  has  no  shape. 
*  *  *  *  There  are  said  to  be  temperaments  en 
dowed  with  sympathies  so  exquisite  that,  by  merely 
handling  an  autograph,  they  can  detect  the  writer's 
character  with  unerring  accuracy,  and  read  his  in 
most  heart  as  easily  as  a  less  gifted  eye  would  peruse 
the  written  page.  Our  faith  in  this  power,  be  it  a 
spiritual  one,  or  only  a  refinement  of  the  physical  na 
ture,  is  not  unlimited,  in  spite  of  evidence. 
God  has  imparted  to  the  human  soul  a  marvellous 
strength  in  guarding  its  secrets,  and  he  keeps  at  least 
the  deepest  and  most  inward  record  for  his  own 
perusal.  But  if  there  be  such  sympathies  as  we  have 
alluded  to,  in  how  many  instances  would  history  be 
put  to  blush  by  a  volume  of  autographic  letters,  like 
this  which  we  now  close!"* 

*A  Book  of  Autographs:    Hawthorne's  Works.     Ed.   1889. 
Vol.  XII,  88. 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  AUTOGRAPH      47 

Even  in  a  sedate  student  of  history,  a  new  emotion 
may  be  produced  by  the  actual  and  visible  presence 
of  such  a  letter  as  this,  from  Charles  II.  which  speaks 
of  a  kindly  heart,  whatever  we  may  think  of  the 
morals  of  the  Merry  Monarch.  As  Mr.  Choate  said 
some  years  ago,  "he  was  a  jovial  blade." 

"Whitehall,   10  Jan.,   1684. 

Harry  Sidney.  I  would  have  you  assure  Temple 
that  I  am  very  kinde  to  him,  and  if  he  can  compasse 
the  match  he  designes  at  Paris  I  will  use  my  best 
offices  with  the  king  of  France  to  make  it  in  all  points 
as  easy  to  him  as  I  can. 

CHARLES  R." 

I  trust  that  no  disrespect  is  implied  in  spelling  the 
word  "king"  with  a  small  "K." 

Coming  to  a  much  later  day,  it  is  surely  of  interest 
to  read  what  George  Bancroft  thought  of  President 
Andrew  Johnson,  particularly  in  view  of  the  discovery, 
from  the  Johnson  papers  in  the  Congressional  Library, 
that  the  first  message  of  that  much-abused  president,  a 
state  paper  admired  and  wondered  at  when  it  ap 
peared,  was  drafted  by  America's  most  distinguished 
historian.  He  is  writing  to  Adam  Badeau.  "I  knew 
Andrew  Johnson  thoroughly  well,"  he  says,  "having 
once  lived  near  him  where  I  saw  him  every  day  and 
had  the  most  unreserved  intercourse  with  him.  I  then 
held  and  now  hold  that  his  arraignment  was  an  act  of 
injustice,  and  that  he  was  on  his  trial  thoroughly  en 
titled  to  acquittal.  The  man  had  faults  enough,  ambi 
tion  enough;  but  his  unvaried  intention  was,  to  main 
tain  fidelity  to  the  Constitution  and  keep  within  its 
bounds."  If  we  look  upon  Bancroft  on  that  side  of  his 
character  which  is  the  most  attractive,  we  cannot  fail 
to  be  brought  closer  to  him  when  we  have  before  us, 


48  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

In  his  own  distinct  handwriting,  what  he  wrote  to  Bay 
ard  Taylor  in  1864.  "Mr.  Lang  has  just  left  with  me 
your  chant  for  Bryant's  yoth  birthday.  It  is  admirable. 
I  expected  good  from  you;  and  you  have  done  exceed 
ingly  well.  You  need  never  regret  that  you  made  this 
most  successful  effort.  .  .  .  You  are  too  modest. 
Your  parts  are  never  of  the  past."  I  am  sorry  to  say 
that  Bancroft  then  proceeds  to  suggest  amendments  of 
Taylor's  verses,  which  in  charity  I  refuse  to  quote.  They 
partake  of  the  quality  exhibited  in  the  Poems  of  1823. 
The  "Mr.  Lang"  mentioned  in  the  letter  is  not  Andrew 
the  All-Knowing,  but  Louis  Lang,  an  artist  of 
New  York,  who  composed  the  music  for  Tay 
lor's  Ode,  which  was  sung  at  the  Century  Club 
on  the  night  of  November  5th,  1864,  when— 
Bancroft  presiding  and  Emerson,  Holmes  and  a 
host  of  others  assembled— that  Association  commem 
orated  the  arrival  of  the  beloved  poet  at  the  age  of 
three  score  and  ten. 

The  innate  modesty  of  Hawthorne  shines  out  in  this 
brief  letter,  which  he  wrote  from  Lenox  in  December, 
1850,  after  he  had  given  to  the  world  "The  Scarlet 
Letter,"  and  had  ceased  to  be  what  he  once  styled  him 
self,  "the  obscurest  man  of  letters  in  America."  I  do 
not  know  the  name  of  the  person  to  whom  it  was  writ 
ten:  but  that  is  of  no  moment.  He  writes:  "I  am 
gratified  that  you  think  me  worth  biographizing;  and 
as  soon  as  I  get  a  book  off  my  hands,  I  will  see  what 
I  can  do  towards  your  purpose.  You  will  not  find  it 
a  life  of  many  incidents.  I  could  wish  (not  for  the 
first  time)  that  I  were  personally  known  to  you,  and 
could  impart  the  requisite  materials  from  one  corner 
of  the  fireside  to  the  other."  That  this  expression  was 
sincere,  there  can  be  no  question;  it  does  not  bear  out 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  AUTOGRAPH   49 

the  idea  that  Hawthorne  was  an  unsocial  person,  shun 
ning  his  fellow-beings.  But  I  must  not  indulge  too  free 
ly  in  my  fondness  for  my  own  treasures. 

Sometimes  the  satisfaction  in  the  possession  of  "some 
thing  which  no  one  else  may  own,"  is  seriously  les 
sened  by  the  discovery  that  some  one  else  has  a  prize 
which  he  fondly  believes  to  be  the  very  thing  which 
I  cherish  so  lovingly.  I  have  had  at  least  three  severe 
shocks  but  I  have  survived  them.  My  letter  of  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  to  Parsons,  the  translator  of  the  "In 
ferno,"  dated  in  1867,  was  printed  in  the  "Century" 
for  October,  1901,  in  an  article  by  Maria  S.  Porter, 
with  a  few  verbal  changes  of  no  moment  but  dated 
"1869,"  and  the  writer  asserted  that  she  was  "the  for 
tunate  possessor  of  it."  In  my  anxiety,  I  wrote  to  her 
at  the  address  given  to  me  by  the  publishers  of  the  mag 
azine,  and  told  her  courteously  of  my  predicament.  I 
received  no  reply,  and  as  my  letter  was  not  returned 
to  me  I  infer  that  possibly  the  lady  had  once  owned 
the  Holmes  letter  but  had  parted  with  it  before  her 
article  appeared.  Years  ago  I  purchased  what  was 
called  the  manuscript  of  Moore's  "Epicurean,"  cover 
ing  one  hundred  and  forty-seven  pages  of  the  two  hun 
dred  and  eleven  comprised  in  the  edition  of  1839. 
Within  a  short  time  I  saw  in  the  catalogue  of  the  sale 
of  Le  Gallienne's  autographs,  an  announcement  of 
"The  Manuscript  of  Thomas  Moore's  Epicurean." 
Later  it  was  sold  in  Bishop  Hurst's  collection,  and  the 
purchaser  kindly  allowed  me  to  examine  it.  His  man 
uscript  is  perhaps  the  "original  manuscript  of  the  orig 
inal  draft;"  contained  in  a  blank  book;  a  preliminary 
sketch,  and  valuable  enough,  while  mine  is  manifestly 
the  copy  sent  to  the  printer. 

I  have  what  I  am  quite  sure  is  the  manuscript  of 


50  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

Barry  Cornwall's  "Life  of  Charles  Lamb,"  a  thick 
volume  whose  sheets  seem,  like  my  Moore's  pages,  to  be 
those  which  the  compositors  handled.  But  when  the 
aforesaid  collection  of  the  worthy  Bishop  was  disposed 
of  at  auction,  there  was  another  "Manuscript  of  Barry 
Cornwall's  Life  of  Charles  Lamb"  offered  to  a  confiding 
public.  I  have  seen  this  also,  and  while  it  is  bound  in 
a  style  quite  similar  to  mine,  it  is  much  smaller  and  ap 
pears  to  be  only  a  rough  draft  of  a  portion  of  the  book. 
The  Bishop  and  I  seem  to  have  been  enamored  of 
drafts.  These  fables  teach  us  not  to  be  unduly  puffed 
up  about  our  "author's  manuscripts;"  there  may  be 
several  of  the  same  work,  for  worthy  books  are  not 
thrown  off  at  a  single  sitting. 

An  English  dealer  once  pointed  out  to  me,  by  way 
of  temptation  to  a  patriotic  American,  the  alleged  man 
uscript  of  "My  Country,  'Tis  of  Thee,"  and  was  quite 
depressed  in  spirit  when  I  told  him  that  good  old  Doc 
tor  Smith  spent  a  large  part  of  his  declining  years  in 
producing  autograph  copies  of  his  one  famous  poem; 
and  Holmes,  in  his  generous  way,  did  not  disdain  to 
turn  out  copies  of  "Old  Ironsides"  and  "The  Last 
Leaf"-— precious  things,  even  if  not  the  originals. 

The  number  of  genuine  collectors  in  the  United  States 
is  not  large,  but  it  is  increasing.  To  those  of  us  whose 
appetite  has  not  yet  been  satiated,  it  is  discouraging  to 
observe  the  rise  in  the  prices  of  desirable  autographs. 
The  Athenaeum  article  from  which  I  have  already 
quoted,  refers  to  contemporaneous  auction  values,  and 
speaks  of  Cromwell  at  five  guineas,  Francis  I.  at  four 
shillings,  Sir  Francis  Walsingham  with  five  added  signa 
tures  at  nine  shillings,  Lord  Nelson  at  two  pounds  fifteen 
shillings,  and  Gibbon  at  eight  shillings.  Before  me  is  a 
manuscript  catalogue  of  a  leading  London  house  in 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  AUTOGRAPH       5 1 

which  Cromwell  figures  at  eighteen  pounds  twelve  shill 
ings,  Francis  I.  at  ten  pounds,  Walsingham  at  thirty-five 
pounds,  and  Gibbon  at  two  pounds  fifteen  shillings.  At 
a  sale  in  London  in  May,  1904,  a  letter  of  Nelson  to 
Lady  Hamilton  brought  one  thousand  and  thirty  pounds 
< — it  seems  an  absurd  price.  The  "Evening  Post" 
bibliophile  intimates  that  it  is  likely  that  "two  agents 
at  the  sale  had  unlimited  bids  from  long-pursed  buy 
ers,  and  each  determined  to  outbid  the  other,  and  both 
lost  their  heads."  I  am  pleased  to  find  one  of  my  theor 
ies  about  these  tremendous  prices  sustained  by  such  a 
competent  authority.  There  are  other  reasons  for  the 
differences  in  sale  values.  The  importance  of  the  con 
tents  of  letter  or  document,  the  sudden  increase  in  the 
fame  of  the  writer,  and  the  anxiety  of  some  enthusiast 
to  obtain  the  one  specimen  needed  to  complete  a 
"set,"  are  all  factors.  Twenty  years  ago  the  eigh 
teen  lines  which  now  confront  me  in  the  rather  boy 
ish  scrawl  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  might  have  been 
found  in  the  "seventy-five  cent  list,"  but  it  cost  me  ten 
dollars— a  fact  which  illustrates  the  truth  of  the  adage 
concerning  the  unwise  person  and  his  supply  of  coin, 
more  forcible  than  polite.  It  suggests  the  idea  that  the 
problem  of  what  to  do  with  our  ex-Presidents  is  more 
easily  solved  than  we  had  supposed.  Ten  autograph 
letters  a  day  at  ten  dollars  each  would  afford  a  respect 
able  income,  although  there  would  be  danger  of  over 
stocking  the  market;  but  Congress  might  establish  a 
fixed  price,  deriving  its  power  in  that  regard  from  the 
interstate  commerce  clause  of  the  Constitution. 

Bearing  in  mind  the  record  contained  in  the  Athen 
aeum,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the  man  who  bought  wisely 
in  1828  might  have  left  a  legacy  to  his  descendants  far 
more  valuable  than  city  lots  in  upper  New  York  which 


52  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

have  enriched  so  many  members  of  our  modern 
aristocracy.  Regarded  as  an  investment,  I  am  in 
clined  to  believe  that  a  well-selected  collection  of 
autograph  letters  may  be,  in  the  long  run,  superior  to 
railway  stocks  or  bonds.  It  is  true  that  autographs  pay 
no  dividends;  but  we  know  that,  and  we  never  know 
whether  we  are  to  get  our  income  from  what  we  are 
pleased  to  call  our  "securities."  There  is  great  satis 
faction  in  being  certain  about  something.  I  know  that 
there  has  been  offered  to  me  for  a  dozen  Revolutionary 
War  letters,  signed  by  Washington,  double  the  amount 
I  paid  for  them  a  few  years  ago,  and  I  cannot  say  as 
much  for  any  of  the  beautifully  engraved  certificates  or 
evidences  of  indebtedness  of  "railways"  or  "industri 
als."  I  suppose  the  name  "industrials"  was  adopted 
because  of  the  energy  with  which  the  promoters 
"worked"  the  community.  The  real  collector,  however, 
has  small  regard  for  the  sordid  side  of  the  occupation. 
I  would  not  part  with  my  Washingtons  for  many  times 
their  cost,  but  I  like  to  think  that  somebody  covets  them. 
When  the  Maniac  charges  me  with  turning  up  my 
nose  at  his  kind,  he  is  mistaken.  I  am  not  what  Mrs. 
Squeers  called  "a  turned-up-nose  peacock,"  —  far  from 
it.  Dickens  remarked  that  a  peacock  with  a  turned-up- 
nose  is  a  novelty  in  ornithology  and  a  thing  not  com 
monly  seen.  A  collector  of  autographs  who  turns  up 
his  nose  at  any  other  collector  is  just  as  much  of  a  nov 
elty.  The  collector  who  deserves  the  name  is  compre 
hensive  in  his  affections;  nothing  collectorial  is  alien 
to  him.  He  would  indeed  be  an  offensive  creature  who 
would  scorn  the  feeblest  efforts  of  an  aspirant,  the  in 
cipient  struggles  of  a  neophyte  whose  untutored  mind  is 
striving  to  attain  the  ultimate  goal  of  ambition.  I  re 
member  that  in  my  salad  days  I  deliberately  destroyed 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  AUTOGRAPH       53 

a  large  number  of  interesting  letters  of  public  men  in  or 
der  to  save  only  the  signatures,  and  yet  I  escaped  an 
indictment  for  malicious  mischief.  We  must  all  have 
our  beginnings;  we  must  pass  through  the  trying  or 
deals  of  infancy,  of  boyhood,  and  of  young  manhood. 
There  are  many  stages  of  the  malady  which  Edmund 
Gosse  calls  "collectaneomania." 

A  veteran  collector  would  no  more  dream  of  distort 
ing  his  nasal  organ  in  the  presence  of  youthful  ignor 
ance  than  Grant  or  Lee  would  have  thought  of  sneering 
at  a  West  Point  cadet  or  Choate  or  Carter  would  have 
despised  a  Bachelor  of  Laws  just  out  of  Cambridge, 
Columbia,  or  Mr.  Chase's  School.  It  is  delightful  to 
observe  the  protoplasmic  germ  of  a  collector;  no  one 
can  tell  what  may  come  of  it;  it  may  develop  into 
greatness.  The  serene  altitude  of  the  Bixbys  and  the 
Morgans  I  do  not  hope  to  attain;  but  despite  the  ill- 
concealed  amusement  of  the  populace,  I  expect  to  con 
tinue  to  the  end  of  life  the  pleasant  quest  of  the  auto 
graph. 


REFLECTIONS  OF  AN  AUTOGRAPH  LOVER 

UPON  the  principle  of  dichotomous  division, 
dear  to  the  soul  of  my  old  preceptor  Dr. 
Atwater,  mankind  may  be  said  to  consist 
of   two   classes — those   who   collect   auto 
graphs  and  those  who  do  not.     I  am  ad 
dressing  myself  to  the  second  and  numerically  larger 
class,  for  to  the  others  I  can  impart  little  or  nothing 
of  interest  or  value.     They  know  it  all  themselves. 

A  well-beloved  friend,  known  in  the  world  of  litera 
ture — the  late  Laurence  Hutton— said  in  a  lecture  at 
Princeton  that  there  were  four  methods  of  getting  au 
tographs  :  that  is  to  say,  by  reception,  by  gift,  by  pur 
chase,  and  by  theft.  I  do  not  reproduce  his  exact  words 
but  only  my  recollection  of  them  as  he  repeated  them 
to  me  while  we  were  enjoying  a  sociable  cigar  on  the 
pleasant  piazza  of  "The  Inn."  He  did  not  refer  to  a 
fifth  method,  adopted  only  by  fiends,  which  may  be 
styled  "extortion,"  possibly  because  he  regarded  it  as 
only  a  species  of  the  genus  theft.  It  is  the  devotee  of 
extortion  who  makes  the  honorable  guild  of  autograph 
collectors  unjustly  odious  in  the  sight  of  the  world.  He 
surely  overlooked  other  ways  and  means  which  may  be 
mentioned  hereafter. 

I  have  endeavored  elsewhere  in  a  mild  and  humble 
manner  to  vindicate  the  lover  of  autographs,  truly  so- 
called,  but  I  fear  that  my  well-meant  effort  has  not  been 
overwhelmingly  successful.  An  acquaintance  who  made 
false  pretense  of  having  read  the  dissertation,  said  smil 
ingly  to  me :  "Why,  I  used  to  collect  postage  stamps 

55 


5  6  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

myself,  when  I  was  a  boy",  unthinkingly  classing  my 
pursuit  with  the  feeble  strivings  of  his  childhood.  But 
it  is  not  my  purpose  to  make  a  brief  in  the  case  of  the 
autograph  hunter  against  the  scoffer.  He  who  does  not 
comprehend  intuitively  the  good  there  is  in  the  collect 
ing  of  autographs  will  never  be  convinced  by  all  the 
logic  of  the  schools.  It  must  come  to  him  like  an  ap 
preciation  of  Tintoretto. 

In  many  instances  the  utterances  of  those  who  abuse 
collectors  are  the  result  of  pure  ignorance.  At  a  sale 
a  few  years  ago,  a  number  of  letters  were  disposed  of 
by  auction,  including  some  of  Henry  Clay  and  other 
American  public  men,  which  realized  only  small  sums, 
and  one  of  the  late  Edward  VII.  written  when  he  was 
Prince  of  Wales  and  addressed  to  Mrs.  Langtry,  for 
which  some  misguided  but  enthusiastic  individual  paid 
ninety  dollars  as  I  have  elsewhere  related.  Of  course 
the  low  prices  of  the  great  Americans  were  occasioned 
by  the  profusion  of  the  supply — the  statesmen  of 
Clay's  time  must  have  written  letters  by  the  mile. 
Say  what  the  newspaper  critics  will,  there  are  vast 
numbers  of  people  of  refinement  who  gaze  with  in 
terest  and  curiosity  on  a  letter  from  a  King  to  a  famous 
actress,  but  who  cast  an  indifferent  eye  upon  long 
and  eloquent  epistles  of  Clay  or  of  Webster.  To 
denounce  all  collectors  as  snobs  because  one  of  them 
paid  ninety  dollars  for  King  Edward's  autograph,  is 
an  excellent  example  of  our  old  college  acquaintance,  the 
fallacy  of  the  undistributed  middle.  We  might  as  well 
say  that  because  some  of  our  metropolitan  journals  reek 
with  sensation,  foulness  and  crime,  all  newspapers  are 
dirty  and  disreputable. 

We  will  assume  as  a  postulate  that  it  must  be  of 
benefit  to  gather  into  one's  possession  the  veritable 


AN  AUTOGRAPH  LOVER  57 

writings  of  the  famous,  the  things  which  their  own 
hands  made,  and  we  will  consider  briefly  the  way  of 
the  man  with  the  autograph.  A  notable  thing  it  is, 
indeed,  to  receive  from  a  person  of  distinction  an  au 
tograph  letter  addressed  to  one's  self,  voluntarily, 
without  previous  solicitation — like  the  one  I  am  so 
proud  of,  from  that  noble  statesman,  Grover  Cleve 
land,  which  I  prize  far  beyond  all  the  rest.  Obviously 
it  must  be  only  the  favored  few  who  are  able  to  point 
exultingly  to  letters  of  that  order;  men  like  James  T. 
Fields,  Charles  Oilier,  the  publisher,  or  dear  Lau 
rence  Hutton  of  blessed  memory.  I  remember  that 
the  Landmarker  refused  to  admit  any  other  sort  with 
in  the  attractive  boundaries  of  his  collection.  It  is 
not  pleasant  to  think  that  at  some  day  such  treasures 
must  either  be  added  to  the  number  of  marketable  au 
tographs  or  be  buried  irretrievably  in  some  splendid 
library  where  nobody  will  pay  much  attention  to  them. 
The  surest  way  of  consigning  to  oblivion  a  collection 
of  autographs  is  to  bestow  it  upon  a  public  library 
over  whose  glass-covered  cases  may  well  be  inscribed 
las  date  ogni  speranza.  Perhaps  the  Library  of  Con 
gress  may  be  an  exception.  A  few  framed  specimens 
like  the  fine  George  Washington,  on  the  walls  of  the 
Bodleian,  which  stirred  with  pride  my  American 
heart,  are  suitable  enough,  but  an  autograph  collection 
is  not  to  be  stored  away  in  locked  cabinets  or  in  steel- 
bound  vaults.  It  is  something  to  be  played  with,  to 
be  pawed  over,  to  be  arranged  and  re-arranged,  per 
petually  to  be  added  to,  enlarged,  revised,  and  im 
proved.  It  should  be  free  from  the  intrusion  of  paste 
and  of  albums.  It  should  be  protected  by  wrappers 
or  by  portfolios  only,  except  perhaps  in  the  case  of 
complete  "sets",  such  as  "Signers  of  the  Declara- 


5  8  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

tion",  "Presidents",  "Kings  of  England",  "Napo 
leon's  Marshals",  or  "Generals  of  the  Revolution", 
and  these,  when  completed  and  associated  with  the 
best  of  portraits,  may  be  enshrined  by  our  pet  binder 
in  the  richest  of  crushed  levant,  or  in  the  more  dura 
ble  pig-skin  which  that  dean  of  collectors,  Dr.  Em 
met,  is  said  to  prefer  over  all  other  kinds  of  binding. 

It  is  also  a  delightful  thing  to  acquire  the  auto 
graphs  by  gift,  and  the  soul  of  the  collector  expands 
with  emotion  when  he  contemplates  the  charming 
specimens  bestowed  upon  him  by  bountiful  friends.  I 
cannot  forget  my  own  joy  over  the  rare  letter  of  Rich- 
ter  sent  to  me  by  a  brother  lawyer,  or  the  manuscript 
notes  of  a  speech  of  Daniel  Webster,  which  came 
from  a  kindly  Boston  book-lover,  or  the  Rufus  Choate 
manuscript,  a  portentous  array  of  wild  scrawlings, 
the  gift  of  another  New  York  lawyer  endowed  with  a 
genuine  affection  for  that  which  is  good  and  instruc 
tive;  or  that  splendid  Kipling  story,  "The  Recrudes 
cence  of  Imray",  as  it  was  originally  called,  which  the 
famous  bank-president  brought  to  me  with  his  own 
hands,  leaving  me  breathless  with  gratitude  and 
amazement.  My  ponderous  portfolios  of  Continental 
Congressmen  would  be  sadly  deficient  but  for  the  gen 
erosity  of  Danforth  and  Greenough.  It  speaks  in  no 
uncertain  accents  of  the  altruism  of  collectors,  this 
fondness  for  helping  others.  I  do  not  discover  it  in 
any  other  class  of  collectors.  How  much  dear  old 
Dr.  Sprague  did  to  enlarge  the  happiness  of  his 
brethren ! 

George  William  Curtis,  that  true  literary  artist, 
must  have  been  one  of  the  few  who  realize  that  it  is 
more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive,  when  he  parted 
with  that  notelet  which  I  have  bound  in  my  set  of  the 


AN  AUTOGRAPH  LOVER  59 

original  numbers  of  The  Virginians  together  with  a 
page  of  the  manuscript  of  that  novel;  it  is  quoted  in 
James  Grant  Wilson's  book: 

"My  dear   Curtis: 

Who  can  be  the  friend  who  asks  for  the  signature 
of  the  unhappy 

W.  M.  THACKERAY?" 

I  do  not  know  who  the  friend  was,  but  he  deserved 
summary  and  condign  punishment  because  he  asked 
for  a  signature  only.  He  who  begs  for  a  signature  is 
lost.  He  has  not  attained  the  lowest  round  of  the 
ladder;  he  has  the  same  relation  to  the  kingdom  of 
collection  as  the  patent  medicine  advertisement  has  to 
literature  or  which  the  lad  with  his  hoard  of  postage 
stamps  has  to  Beverly  Chew  or  to  Howard  Mansfield. 
I  shall  never  feel  that  I  have  done  my  duty  as  a  citi 
zen  until  I  shall  have  secured  the  adoption  of  an 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  making  the  solicitation 
of  an  autograph  signature  equivalent  to  an  overt  act 
of  treason. 

Not  many  of  us  are  fortunate  enough  to  have  the 
help  of  such  assistants  as  the  Autocrat  of  the  Break 
fast  Table  whose  masterpiece,  according  to  Donald 
Mitchell,  will  go  with  Montaigne,  with  the  essays  of 
Goldsmith,  and  with  "Elia"  upon  one  of  the  low 
shelves  where  it  may  be  easily  reached  and  where  it 
will  always  be  ready  to  give  joy  to  the  reader.  The 
sweet  doctor  writes,  in  his  clear,  dainty  hand: 

"Beverly  Farms,  Mass.,  August  21,  1879. 
My  dear  Longfellow:  I  send  you  a  letter  of  Mr. 
Frederick  Locker  with  a  request  which  I  know  you 
will  comply  with.  The  daughter  he  refers  to,  as  you 
may  remember,  married  Tennyson's  son.  If  you 
would  have  the  kindness,  after  writing  the  lines 


60  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

marked  for  yourself,  to  send  the  whole,  letter  and  all, 
to  Emerson,  he  to  Whittier,  and  Whittier  to  me,  I 
should  feel  in  sending  back  the  manuscript  that  I  had 
made  Mr.  Locker  happy,  and  that  I  should  be  glad  to 
do,  for  he  has  shown  me  much  kindness,  though  I 
have  never  seen  him.  I  cannot  help  the  fact  that  his 
letter  has  a  few  complimentary  words  about  myself 
—you  can  skip  those,  if  you  will  read  the  rest. 
Always  faithfully  yours, 

O.  W.  HOLMES." 

I  am  told  by  those  who  knew  him  that  Frederick 
Locker  (later  calling  himself,  for  financial  reasons, 
Frederick  Locker-Lampson)  who  wrote  the  London 
Lyrics,  was  personally  unpleasant,  disagreeable,  and 
repellent.  But  if  any  man  who  loves  books  or  the 
makers  of  books  pauses  to  ponder  over  the  kindly 
epistle  of  the  beloved  Holmes,  his  imagination  must 
surely  be  stimulated  when  he  reflects  that  it  was  writ 
ten  by  the  witty  poet  and  essayist,  who  is  one  of  our 
dearest  possessions;  that  it  passed  through  the  hands 
of  a  greater  poet  who  was  almost  as  lovable,  to  whom 
it  was  addressed;  and  that  it  reminds  us  of  an  accom 
plished  author,  who  may  have  been  ungracious  and 
uncomfortable  to  meet,  but  who  wrote  charmingly 
and  whose  interesting  Confidences  recall  pleasantly 
the  literary  life  of  London  in  his  day.  It  recalls  also 
the  daughter-in-law  of  the  great  Laureate,  and  the 
wonderful  New  Englanders,  Emerson  and  Whittier, 
who  certainly  did  not  refuse  to  comply  with  a  request 
so  gently  made. 

Not  unlike  the  Autocrat's  letter  is  this  one  to  Cur 
tis,  which  I  find  among  my  belongings : 

"Sunnyside,   September   12,    1854. 
Mr.  dear  Mr.  Curtis:     I  hasten  to  furnish  the  auto 
graphs  you  request  for  those  two  'enthusiastic,  lovely 


AN  AUTOGRAPH  LOVER  61 

and  sensible'  young  ladies  of  whom  you  speak.     Dur 
ing  the  prevalence  of  the  autograph  mania,  it  is  quite 
a  relief  to  have  such  fair  and  interesting  applicants. 
Yours  very  truly, 

WASHINGTON  IRVING. 
George  W.  Curtis,  Esq." 

It  is  comical  to  observe  the  old  bachelor's  willing 
ness  to  oblige  pretty  girls,  as  if  their  requests  for  au 
tographs  were  less  tiresome  than  those  of  mere  men. 
Irving  was  always  fond  of  the  society  of  women,  true 
as  he  was  to  the  memory  of  the  one  whom  he  lost  in 
her  girlhood. 

Another  means  of  obtaining  autographs,  which  may 
be  a  sub-head  under  the  title  "gift",  is  exchange.  There 
was  more  exchanging  done  in  the  earlier  days  than  now. 
Perhaps  the  most  famous  instance  on  record  is  the  one 
described  in  the  books,  where  Doctor  Sprague,  the  re 
nowned  pioneer  in  our  ranks,  parted  with  the  only 
known  letter  of  Thomas  Lynch,  Jr.,  written  to  Wash 
ington  on  July  5,  1777.  It  went  to  Doctor  Emmet  in 
a  barter,  practically  costing  him  $700,  according  to  the 
testimony  of  Lyman  C.  Draper,  who  published  a  volume 
about  the  Signers  of  the  Declaration  and  the  Signers 
of  the  Constitution.  Lynch  the  youthful  Signer,  who 
was  lost  at  sea  when  only  thirty  years  old,  ranks  with 
Button  Gwinnett,  of  Georgia,  as  the  rarest  of  the  noble 
company.  Gwinnett  left  no  holograph  letters,  as  far  as 
my  information  goes,  but  there  are  several  autograph 
documents  of  his  which  are  almost  as  valuable  as  letters 
would  be.  Doctor  Sprague  had  the  good  fortune  to 
know  Judge  Bushrod  Washington,  and  obtained  his 
permission  to  select  whatever  he  pleased  from  the 
voluminous  correspondence  of  the  General,  leaving  cop 
ies  of  those  he  desired  to  take  with  him.  He  chose 


62  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

about  fifteen  hundred,  among  them  the  unrivaled  Lynch, 
the  envy  and  despair  of  modern  American  collectors, 
who  must  needs  be  content  with  "cut"  signatures.  It  is 
said  that  the  fortunate  owner  once  refused  $5,000  for 
it,  and  it  is  now  the  property  of  the  New  York  Public 
Library. 

Hutton,  while  mentioning  four  ways  of  gathering  au 
tographs,  overlooked  inheritance  as  well  as  extortion 
and  exchange.  The  Leffingwell  collection  was  be 
queathed  to  a  niece  of  the  original  collector;  part  of 
Sprague's  went  to  his  son,  a  respected  lawyer  in  New 
York,  who  transferred  it  to  the  accomplished  Albanian 
and  entertaining  speaker,  the  late  John  Boyd  Thacher; 
T.  Bailey  Myers  left  his  large  accumulations  to  his  son 
and  daughter,  from  whom  they  passed  to  join  the  Em 
met  collection  in  the  New  York  Library;  and  Mrs. 
Ely,  of  Providence,  almost  a  unique  example  of  a  fem 
inine  autograph-collector,  handed  down  her  stores  to  her 
daughter  and  her  grandson.  I  question  whether  an 
inherited  collection  ever  appeals  strongly  to  the  lega 
tees;  the  taste  itself  may  be  inherited  but  it  does  not 
pass  by  testamentary  disposition. 

It  is  the  fate  of  most  collections  to  be  dispersed,  and 
in  my  copy  of  Draper's  book  I  have  inserted  a  letter  of 
Doctor  Sprague,  in  which  he  writes,  characteristically: 
"If  you  happen  to  have  any  duplicates,  and  will  tell  me 
what  they  are,  and  which  you  want,  I  will  see  if  I  can 
accommodate  you  by  an  exchange.  When  I  began  to 
collect  autographs  I  was  the  intimate  friend  and  cor 
respondent  of  Robert  Gilmour,  of  your  city, — the  first 
collector  I  ever  knew.  But  it  is  long  since  his  collec 
tion  was  sold  and,  I  suppose,  scattered  to  the  winds." 
Gilmour  (or  Gilmor)  was  of  Baltimore  and  some  of 
his  quondam  possessions  rest  now  in  my  own  collec- 


AN  AUTOGRAPH  LOVER  63 

tion,  to  be  dispersed  again,  I  know,  in  the  course  of 
time. 

Most  of  us  acquired  our  autographs  as  Major  Gen 
eral  Stanley  acquired  his  ancestors— by  purchase;  from 
dealers,  from  private  owners,  and  from  sales  at  auction. 
It  is  said  that  auction  sales  of  autographs  began  in  Lon 
don  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century,  and  since  1823 
they  have  been  quite  frequent  not  only  in  England  but 
in  Paris,  New  York,  Boston,  and  Philadelphia.  It  is 
not  at  all  a  romantic  or  a  picturesque  way,  and  one 
cannot  grow  very  gossipy  or  loquacious  about  such  pure 
ly  mercantile  transactions.  As  in  the  case  of  books, 
the  auction  prices  seldom  afford  any  just  criterion  of 
value.  There  may  be  an  enthusiast,  bent  upon  gaining 
certain  items,  who  will  run  up  the  prices  to  fabulous 
heights,  and  again  there  may  be  occasions  when,  by 
reason  of  indifference,  or  of  inadequate  advertising,  the 
finest  specimens  are  knocked  down  for  a  trifling  sum, 
but  generally  to  professionals.  I  never  got  a  bargain 
in  my  life;  and  if  an  amateur  shows  himself  at  such 
sales  he  is  promptly  frozen  out  or  rather  lifted  out  by 
a  combination  of  the  dealers.  Usually  it  is  better  to 
treat  with  one  of  the  regular  tradesmen  in  autographs; 
the  private  vendor  is  commonly  impossible.  His  idea 
of  the  value  of  what  he  has,  is  generally  absurd.  The 
dealer  will  ask  more  than  his  wares  are  really  worth,  but 
we  must  make  due  allowance,  and  as  most  of  us  are 
engaged  in  other  pursuits  demanding  a  fairly  constant 
attention,  we  ought  to  pay  him  for  the  time  he  saves 
us  as  well  as  for  his  expert  judgment,  and  the  money 
is  not  thrown  away.  It  is  odd  that  some  American 
autographs  are  very  dear  in  England,  and  most  Eng 
lish  autographs  are  correspondingly  dear  in  New  York. 
This  is  of  little  moment  to  the  money-kings  who  have 


64  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

taken  to  autograph-collecting,  and  who  think  nothing  of 
sweeping  up  a  collection  of  thousands,  while  we  humbler 
disciples  are  conscious  of  guilt  if  we  timidly  venture  a 
few  hundred  dollars,  after  much  pondering  and  self- 
castigation.  Yet  I  believe  that  he  who  painfully  brings 
together  his  beloved  scraps  piece-meal,  by  unaided  toil 
and  research,  derives  more  pleasure  from  it  than  do 
those  who  purchase  at  wholesale. 

Even  the  least  avaricious  of  us  sometimes  dream  of 
finding  money;  and  when  I  have  been  thinking  of  a 
certain  piece  of  luck  which  befell  a  lady  I  once  knew, 
I  am  sure  to  dream  of  finding  a  long-forgotten  hoard 
of  autographs  in  some  out-of-the-way  place.  A  long 
time  ago  this  lady  was  sojourning  at  the  home  of  a  ven 
erable  member  of  the  Franklin  family,  and  on  seeing 
some  men  carrying  off  a  large  box  or  barrel  of  old  pa 
pers,  was  moved  to  ask  the  owner  to  let  her  have  the 
rejected  rubbish.  It  turned  out  to  be  a  wonderful  au 
tographic  treasure — drafts  of  letters,  essays,  reports, 
Revolutionary  accounts  kept  while  the  writer  was  in 
France,  all  in  the  hand  of  Benjamin  Franklin;  letters 
addressed  to  him,  one  from  John  Paul  Jones  describing 
the  battle  of  the  Bon  Homme  Richard,  saved  as  by  a 
miracle  from  the  devouring  maw  of  the  paper  mill. 
These  now  occupy  a  place  of  honor  in  the  collection  of 
a  learned  Pennsylvania  Society,  except  the  Jones  letter 
which  I  am  told  was  unluckily  given  away  to  some 
person  unknown.  It  makes  one's  heart  sink  to  be  in 
formed  that  there  had  been  other  barrels !  The  increas 
ed  interest  in  all  Revolutionary  records  which  has  come 
in  later  days  makes  it  well  nigh  impossible  that  such  a 
chance  should  come  to  anyone  now.  Yet  the  South  has 
not  been  fully  explored. 

As  to  theft  and  extortion,  it  is  well  not  to  go  into 


AN  AUTOGRAPH  LOVER  65 

distressing  details.  I  do  not  justify  the  larceny  of  an 
autograph  letter  for  purposes  of  gain,  but  when  I  am 
permitted  to  browse  peacefully  in  some  fat  letter  book 
appertaining  to  a  Philistine,  who  knows  not  the  joys 
of  collecting,  I  am  sorely  tempted  to  purloin  that  which 
means  little  to  him,  but  much  to  me.  Hitherto  I  have 
sternly  resisted  the  voice  of  the  tempter. 

"Why  comes  temptation,  but  for  man  to  meet 
And  master,  and  make  crouch  beneath  his  foot, 
And  so  be  pedestaled  in  triumph." 

A  confiding  friend  once  admitted  to  me  that  he  had 
stolen  a  set  of  autographs,  and  years  afterwards  tor 
tured  by  conscience,  made  restitution  to  the  true 
owner  who  had  never  missed  them. 

The  London  Athenaeum  observed  in  1855  that  uthe 
story  of  what  history  owes  to  the  autograph  collectors 
would  make  a  pretty  book".  That  book  has  never  yet 
been  written,  but — 


A  CERTAIN  AFFECTATION  OF  THE  GREAT 

AS  the  fortunate  individuals  who  are  pos 
sessed  of  what  the  world  calls  greatness 
are  necessarily  different  in  capacity  and 
endowments  from  the  general  body  of 
the  people,  it  is  perhaps  natural  that 
they  should  observe  the  affairs  of  life  from  a  point 
of  view  more  elevated  and  commanding  than  that 
which  is  occupied  by  ordinary  human  beings.  It  is 
for  this  reason,  no  doubt,  that  they  frequently  dis 
play  what  we  of  humbler  station  are  accustomed  to 
characterize  as  affectations.  Those  who  have  devoted 
time  and  labor  to  the  study  of  the  lives  of  great  men 
and  women,  in  order  that  we  may  be  instructed  how 
to  "make  our  lives  sublime",  will  not  need  to  be  re 
minded  of  particular  instances  nor  to  be  convinced  by  the 
production  of  testimony  tending  to  establish  the  verity 
of  the  proposition.  We  are  all  familiar  with  the  truth 
that  such  persons,  for  example,  as  Louis  XIV,  Queen 
Elizabeth,  Napoleon,  General  Winfield  Scott,  Horace 
Greeley,  the  Kaiser  Wilhelm,  and  others  nearer  home, 
were  and  are  mere  bundles  of  affectations. 

I  was  moved  to  indulge  in  these  profound  reflec 
tions  by  the  perusal  of  some  remarks  in  the  "Contrib 
utor's  Club"  in  a  number  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly, 
entitled  "A  Great  Person  and  Certain  Bores".  The 
writer  announced  that  he  (or  she)  "has  lately  been 
private  secretary  and  literary  advisor  (sic)  to  a  Great 
Person",  and  contributed  to  the  enlightment  of  man 
kind  this  gem  of  wisdom:  "The  worst  enemy  to  the 
Great  Person  is  the  autograph  collector.  Now,  the  col- 


68  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

lector  who  buys  with  good  money  autographs  that  are 
already  on  paper,  or  who  begs  from  his  friends,  or 
who  knows  celebrities  well  enough  to  ask  them  to 
their  faces  for  their  signatures,  may  be,  and  I  am  sure 
is,  a  great  nuisance.  But  he  is  not  a  foe  to  society." 

I  have  elsewhere  expressed  the  opinion,  founded 
partly  upon  knowledge  acquired  by  a  careful  examina 
tion  of  written  and  printed  records,  and  partly  upon 
facts  derived  from  personal  observation,  that  the  truly 
great  are  not  really  as  much  bored  by  requests  for  au 
tographs  as  minor  magnates  of  literature  and  of  poli 
tics  would  have  an  admiring  public  believe.  I  shall 
not,  however,  attempt  to  justify  or  to  defend  the  "pes 
tilential  nuisance"  who  "writes  for  autographs".  There 
is  no  need  of  heaping  upon  the  head  of  such  a  pseudo- 
collector  any  further  epithets  of  scorn.  Let  us  say 
that  he  is  an  impertinent  intruder  and  a  worm,  and  let 
it  go  at  that.  Away  with  him !  What  interests  me  is 
to  observe  that  the  Great  appear  to  have  developed 
their  affectation  so  far  as  to  denounce  as  a  nuisance 
the  man  who  "buys  with  good  money  autographs  that 
are  already  on  paper."  What  words  of  contempt 
would  be  employed  to  crush  the  person  who  bought 
them  with  forged  notes  or  with  counterfeit  coin,  or 
who  purchased  autographs  inscribed  upon  brass,  or 
bronze,  or  imperishable  marble,  or  who  made  con 
tracts  for  the  future  delivery  of  autographs  in  the  con 
fident  expectation  of  a  rise  in  the  market  value  of  au 
tographs,  I  dare  not  imagine,  but  let  us  for  a  moment 
examine  the  merits  of  the  charge  preferred  by  so  im 
portant  a  personage  as  a  former  "private  secretary 
and  literary  'advisor'  to  a  Great  Person." 

It  may  not  profit  us  to  consider  what  may  be  the 
duties  of  a  literary  advisor  to  a  Great  Female  Per- 


AFFECTATIONS  OF  THE  GREAT        69 

son.  A  really  Great  Person  frequently  needs  the  help 
of  a  private  secretary  but  surely  not  the  services  of  a 
literary  advisor,  if  that  title  is  to  be  taken  in  its  or 
dinary  and  obvious  signification.  It  may  be  that  the 
Great  Female  Person  ought  at  times  to  be  told  what 
kinds  of  books  are  appropriate  to  particular  hours  of 
the  day,  or  what  styles  and  colors  of  binding  har 
monize  most  effectively  with  certain  gowns  or  with 
the  furniture  of  the  apartment  devoted  to  the  study 
of  the  works  of  the  poets,  philosophers,  or  word- 
painters  of  the  past.  It  may  be  that  the  Great  Per 
son  has  inaccurate  ideas  of  the  spelling  of  English 
words  or  of  the  construction  of  English  sentences,  but 
I  cannot  believe  that  she  needs  to  be  advised,  let  us 
say,  that  she  must  not  prefer  Alfred  Austin  to  John 
Milton,  or  to  discard  Stubbs,  Freeman  and  John  Rich 
ard  Green  in  favor  of  the  modern  writers  of  histori 
cal  fiction.  The  inquiry  may,  however,  be  deferred. 
It  is  enough  for  the  moment  to  say  that  the  Atlantic 
article  contains  conclusive,  intrinsic  evidence  that  the 
Great  Female  Person  mentioned  in  it  is  great,  not  by 
reason  of  intellect  or  achievement,  but  solely  because 
of  inherited  riches;  and  that  the  ex-private  secretary 
and  ex-literary  advisor,  notwithstanding  a  cunning  lit 
tle  phrase  inserted  with  intent  to  deceive,  is  also  one 
of  the  bright,  alluring,  charming,  and  illogical  sex, 
whose  members  are,  we  are  assured,  in  our  hours  of 
ease  uncertain,  coy  and  hard  to  please,  and  who  rise 
to  their  loftiest  sphere  only  in  those  uncomfortable 
moments  when  pain  and  anguish  wring  the  brow.  We 
may  even  be  right  in  regarding  this  fabrication  of 
libels  upon  harmless  collectors  as  actually  a  much 
Greater  Person  than  the  wealthy  lady  who  required 
her  literary  advice  and  counsel,  and  I  am  sure  that  I 


70  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

would  value  her  autograph  far  more  highly,  unless, 
as  a  million  autograph  writers,  more  or  less,  are  ac 
customed  to  say,  at  the  foot  of  a  cheque. 

Verily  the  judgment  delivered  by  the  ex-advisor 
whereby  she  decrees  that  the  collector  who  buys  con- 
titutes  himself  a  nuisance,  shows  her  imperfect  ac 
quaintance  with  the  facts  and  the  law.  I  fear  that  she 
promulgated  it  without  due  attention  to  the  injunction 
audi  alteram  partem.  If  there  were  any  Court  of  Ap 
peals  of  competent  jurisdiction,  that  court  would  re 
verse  it  without  hesitation,  for  manifest  error  appear 
ing  upon  its  face.  The  true  collector,  as  we  well 
know,  does  not  "beg  from  his  friends"— it  is  not  neces 
sary.  Nor  does  he  ask  celebrities  for  their  signatures. 
He  cares  little  or  nothing  for  the  mere  signatures  of 
living  persons.  He  would  no  more  think  of  asking  a 
great  man  for  his  signature  than  a  numismatist  would 
think  of  asking  him  for  a  dime.  It  is  one  of  the  de 
lusions  of  the  half-educated  that  real  autograph  collec 
tors  prize  signatures.  To  be  sure,  a  signature  of  Shakes 
peare,  or  of  Julius  Caesar,  or  of  Judas  Iscariot,  would 
be  valuable,  for  reasons  which  may  readily  be  under 
stood.  But  nobody  in  this  incarnation  is  likely  to  trouble 
any  of  these  personages  for  a  specimen  of  his  handwrit 
ing.  We  need  not  pause  to  consider  the  case  of  the  beg 
gar  or  the  gatherer  of  "signatures  by  request".  We  are 
concerned  only  with  him  who  "buys  with  good  money". 
It  is  such  a  collector  whom  the  ex-advisor  addresses  in 
an  imaginary  epistle  wherein  she  saucily  says :  "If 
you  are  grown  up  and  hardened  in  evil  ways,  if  you 
are  a  professional  collector  of  great  men's  letters  and 
relics,  you  ought  to  be — .  Perhaps  in  private  and  not 
in  print  the  ex-advisor  uses  language  not  becoming  in 
a  self-respecting  female. 


AFFECTATIONS  OF  THE  GREAT        71 

We  come  to  the  allegation  that  the  collector  who  buys 
the  letters  and  relics  of  great  men  is  a  nuisance,  hard 
ened  in  evil  ways,  who  ought  to  be — whatever  the  lady 
decrees  by  way  of  punishment.  The  accuser  admits  that 
such  a  collector  is  "not  a  foe  to  society".  For  this, 
much  thanks.  But  when,  O  advisor,  you  tell  us  that 
one  who  is  hardened  in  evil  ways  is  not  a  foe  to  society, 
you  would  have  us  believe  that  your  society  has  no  foe 
in  him  who  is  an  evil-doer;  wherefore  your  society  must 
either  have  an  evil-doer  as  a  friend  or  it  must  be  in 
different  to  his  evil  deeds.  This  comes  of  too  long  an 
association  with  the  rich. 

But  why  is  the  collector  who  buys,  a  nuisance?  A 
nuisance  is  something  which  produces  not  merely  annoy 
ance  but  injury  to  some  one.  The  acquisition  and  pres 
ervation  of  letters  and  manuscripts  of  distinguished  per 
sons  is  surely  not  of  itself  injurious  to  any  one.  It  is 
neither  malum  prohibition  nor  malum  in  se.  If  it  were, 
the  libraries  and  museums  of  the  civilized  world  must 
be  relegated  to  the  category  of  nuisances  and  their 
founders  and  promoters  must  be  evil-doers  indeed.  If 
the  exposure  of  Martin  Luther's  letter  in  the  Vatican 
or  the  display  of  the  fine  Washington  in  the  Bodleian 
is  in  the  nature  of  a  nuisance,  let  the  ex-advisor  make 
the  most  of  it.  If  in  the  privacy  of  my  den  I  preserve 
with  fondness  my  manuscripts  of  Gray,  of  a  story  or 
poem  of  Charlotte  Bronte,  or  of  an  epic  of  Southey, 
or  of  essays  of  Irving,  or  of  poems  of  Swinburne;  if 
I  love  to  read  and  to  caress  the  letters  of  Tennyson, 
of  Browning,  of  Wordsworth,  of  Charles  Larnb,  of 
Dickens  and  of  Thackeray,  or  of  our  own  Hawthorne, 
Longfellow  and  Holmes,  in  what  respect  are  the  sen 
sibilities  of  even  a  feminine  literary  advisor  disturbed 
or  wounded?  If  I  should  make  an  improper  use  of 


72  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

the  intimate  and  familiar  confidence  of  any  writer,  so 
as  to  give  pain  to  his  friends,  I  might  be  justly  cen 
sured;  but  it  is  not  of  such  disclosures  or  publications 
that  the  criticism  is  made.  Indeed,  such  disclosures 
usually  come  from  the  friends  themselves— seldom  or 
never  from  collectors.  The  indictment  relates  only  to 
the  collection  and  ownership  of  autograph  letters.  Sure 
ly  we  are  right  in  dismissing  the  bill  of  complaint  for 
want  of  equity  and  in  regarding  the  careless  utterance 
as  merely  an  instance  of  a  common  and  unworthy  affecta 
tion  on  the  part  of  Great  Persons  carried  to  an  extreme. 
The  worst  of  it  is  that  the  complaints  are  so  often  made 
by  very  Little  Persons,  emulating  the  greater  ones. 

Seriously,  my  skull  is  not  so  thick  nor  my  skin  so 
thin  that  I  do  not  discern  in  this  outpouring  of  the  ad 
visor's  spirit  an  attempt  at  the  lightly  humorous.  It 
is,  however,  humor  of  a  cheap  and  rather  time-worn 
vein.  The  late  Irving  Browne  said  that  to  call  a  lawyer 
a  liar,  a  physician  a  murderer,  and  a  clergyman  a  hypo 
crite  was  the  favorite  amusement  of  a  numerically  con 
siderable  portion  of  mankind.  It  is  also  a  delight  to  the 
mildly  facetious  to  read  in  the  columns  of  the  ordinary 
newspaper  the  stale  and  common  jests  about  the  som 
nolent  policeman,  the  sugar-sanding  grocer,  and  the  dis 
honest  Sunday-school  Superintendent.  These  flat  and 
arid  pleasantries  may  perhaps  be  harmless,  but  I  think 
that  the  pages  of  an  honored  and  dignified  magazine 
might  be  employed  to  better  purpose  than  in  dissem 
inating  silliness,  the  humor  of  which  is  so  subtle  that 
many  casual  readers  may  take  it  as  if  it  were  written  in 
sober  earnest.  To  endeavor  to  bring  into  ridicule  a 
useful  and  meritorious  occupation  is  unworthy  of  a  pub 
lication  as  venerable  and  as  highly  respected  as  the 
Atlantic  Monthly. 


i 


A  GEORGIAN  POET 

HE  designation  of  literary  periods  by  the 
names  of  sovereigns  is  convenient  but  not 
very  logical  or  scientific.  We  are  accus 
tomed  to  talk  of  the  Elizabethan  epoch,  the 
time  of  Queen  Anne,  the  Georgian  era, 
and  the  Victorian  age;  and  we  generally  understand 
what  we  mean  by  those  titles.  They  are  no  more  arti 
ficial  than  the  division  by  centuries.  There  is  no  defi 
nite  line  of  demarcation  between  the  last  decade  of  any 
century  and  the  first  decade  of  its  successor,  nor  does 
any  Chinese  wall  separate  the  closing  days  of  Anne 
from  the  opening  years  of  the  first  of  the  Hanoverians. 
When  we  speak  of  Elizabeth,  we  think  of  Shakespeare ; 
when  we  speak  of  Anne,  we  think  of  Pope  and  Swift 
and  Addison.  The  men  of  letters  take  precedence  of 
the  mere  hereditary  rulers.  Anne  did  nothing  important 
for  literature  and  the  Georges  did  even  less.  Yet  "the 
Georgian  era"  is  a  phrase  of  utility  and  it  conveys  an 
impression  sufficiently  significant.  But  although  Words 
worth  and  Coleridge,  Scott  and  Byron,  Shelley  and 
Keats  reached  the  summit  of  their  poetic  fame  before 
the  fourth  George  came  to  the  end  of  his  inglorious 
life,  it  is  essentially  an  impression  of  that  eighteenth 
century  which  most  of  us  regard  as  a  time  of  prepara 
tion  for  the  wonderful  century  which  has  just  passed 
away.  Doubtless  it  was  not  as  tame  and  placid  as  many 
of  us  are  apt  to  believe;  perhaps  it  was  as  astonishing 
and  as  eventful  to  the  people  who  made  its  history  as 
our  own  times  seem  to  us.  "Every  age  appears  surpris- 

73 


74  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

ing  and  full  of  vicissitudes  to  those  that  live  therein."* 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  excitements  of  politics 
and  of  the  drama  in  those  early  Georgian  days,  it  was 
surely  not  a  period  of  great  achievements  in  poetry. 
Tis  an  age  most  unpoetical,"  wrote  Horace  Walpole 
to  Sir  Horace  Mann  in  1742,  and  while  students  have 
assidously  endeavored  to  explain  the  reasons  why,  and 
are  not  always  in  agreement,  they  concur  generally  in 
the  conclusion  of  the  witty  sage  of  Strawberry  Hill. 
Minto  refers  to  the  "common  explanation  of  the  utter 
decay  of  poetry  in  the  eighteenth  century,  that  people 
lived  in  slavish  subservience  to  narrow  and  exclusive 
rules  of  art;  that  all  who  felt  an  impulse  to  write  in 
verse  were  intimidated  into  taking  artificial  standards 
as  their  guide  rather  than  Nature,  that  genius  was  stifled 
by  timid  and  laborious  effort  after  correctness."  The 
truth  is  that  there  were  no  great  men  who  felt  the 
grand,  poetic  impulse ;  and  there  was  no  encouragement 
to  avail  of  poetry  as  a  means  of  reaching  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  their  fellow-men.  "The  standard  of  taste  in 
the  time  of  Queen  Anne,  and  till  near  the  end  of  the 
century,  was  a  self-consciously  aristocratic  and  refined 
society,  self-conscious  of  their  superior  manners  and  su 
perior  culture,  and  disposed  to  treat  the  ways  of  the 
vulgar  with  amused  contempt.  Fear  of  being  vulgar, 
fear  of  being  singular — these  were  the  real  nightmares 
that  sat  upon  eighteenth  century  poetry."f  The  fear 
of  being  vulgar  and  of  being  singular  is  not  characteris 
tic  of  our  own  time;  but  what  Walpole  said  of  his  age 
may  well  be  said  of  ours.  In  the  Georgian  era,  politics 
and  the  play  as  well  as  the  development  of  the  art  of 
prose  writing  were  paramount;  in  the  twentieth  cen- 

*Carlyle's  Note  Books.      141. 

fMinto:  Literature  of  the  Georgian  Era.     41. 


A  GEORGIAN  POET  75 

tury,  politics,  science,  sociology,  and  the  novel  are  the 
most  conspicuous  objects  of  ^terest.  The  light  of  Vic 
torian  poesy  faded  with  the  passing  of  Browning  and 
Tennyson,  and  went  out  altogether  when  Swinburne 
joined  the  ranks  of  the  immortal  dead.  Already  the 
priests  of  the  new  thought  are  telling  us  to  forget 
Browning  and  Tennyson;  but  they  are  giving  us  noth 
ing  to  fill  the  void  left  by  the  vanished  masters.  Yet 
the  poet  will  come  again.  Men  remain  the  same  and 
in  fullness  of  time  the  inspired  singer  will  reappear. 
Meanwhile  the  mediocre  will  prevail  in  poetry, 
keeping  the  lamp  burning,  however  dimly,  until  the 
flame  bursts  forth  again  in  brightness. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  it  profits  us  to  recall 
the  memory  of  the  minor  poets  of  the  early  Georgian 
era,  for  they  were  feeble  folk,  yet  they  had  some  in 
fluence  in  their  generation.  Some  of  their  thoughts 
remain  in  our  minds.  For  the  most  part  they  were 
sincere  and  earnest,  and  they  had  noble  aspirations, 
however  far  they  may  have  fallen  short  of  accom 
plishment.  The  record  of  their  lives  and  of  their 
work  may  not  be  as  fascinating  as  a  modern  romance, 
but  it  is  not  to  be  despised,  for  it  forms  a  part  of  our 
literary  history. 

The  solemn  stateliness  of  the  seventeen  hundreds 
was  manifested  by  the  publishing  of  poetry  in  ponder- 
our  quartos.  The  book  I  have  before  me  is  one  of 
them — an  attractive  example  of  typographic  art, 
bound  in  a  decent  crimson  half-morocco,  with  delight 
ful  saffron  edges.  It  is  entitled  "The  Poems  of  Mark 
Akenside,  M.  D.,  London,  printed  by  W.  Bowyer 
and  J.  Nichols,  and  sold  by  J.  Dodsley,  in  Pall  Mall. 
MDCCLXXII."  It  contains  a  portrait  of  the  author, 
exhibiting  a  gentleman  of  a  heavy,  rather  mournful 


76  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

countenance,  with  an  expression  of  pensive  dullness. 
The  type  of  the  book  is  a  joy  to  the  eye  and  a  rebuke 
to  the  printers  of  these  careless  times. 

It  may  be  a  shallow  reflection,  but  nevertheless  I 
am  confident  that  it  is  not  wholly  without  merit,  that 
the  memory  of  the  poetic  doctor  is  kept  alive  chiefly 
because  his  name  possesses  an  alphabetical  primacy 
in  the  catalogue  of  British  Poets  and  also  lends  itself 
to  a  harmless  if  peurile  paranomasia  so  obvious  that 
it  has  afforded  delight  to  countless  thousands  who  have 
fondly  cherished  the  idea  that  they  were  its  original 
discoverers.  Even  the  book-loving  Irving  Browne, 
who  was  capable  of  better  things,  had  no  scruples 
about  telling  us  in  verse  that  he  could— 

"Sit  at  home  and  double 
Quite   up   with  pain   from   Akenside." 

It  is  by  such  inanities  that  many  know  of  Akenside 
who  never  read  a  line  he  wrote. 

The  edition  of  the  "Works"— I  love  those  clean 
and  comfortable  old  books,— was  published  soon  after 
the  author's  death  and  comprises  "The  Pleasures  of 
the  Imagination"  in  its  original  as  well  as  in  its  revised 
form;  "Odes  on  Several  Subjects,"  bitterly  abused  by 
Samuel  Johnson;  "Hymn  to  the  Naiads";  and  "In 
scriptions." 

Poetry  seems  to  come  in  cycles;  there  are  waves  of 
it.  Surely  the  tide  was  at  the  ebb  in  the  days  of  Mark 
Akenside.  The  great  Cham  of  literature,  who  was 
usually  a  brutal  and  often  a  comical  Cham,  was  strange 
ly  severe  about  Gray.  The  judgment  of  posterity  re 
versed  the  decision  of  Johnson  in  Gray's  case,  but  it  has 
affirmed  the  decree  in  the  matter  of  Akenside.  "I  think 
we  have  had  enough  of  Gray,"  growled  Ursa  Major; 


A  GEORGIAN  POET  77 

"I  see  they  have  published  a  splendid  edition  of  Aken- 
side's  works.  One  bad  ode  may  be  suffered,  but  a 
number  of  them  together  make  me  sick."5  Then, 
when  Boswell  intervened  with  his  artful  encouragement 
of  further  talk— "Akenside's  distinguished  poem  is 
his  'Pleasures  of  the  Imagination,'  but  for  my  part  I 
never  could  admire  it  as  much  as  some  people  do," 
the  mighty  Doctor  fell  into  the  trap  and  added,  "Sir, 
I  could  not  read  it  through,"  to  which  Boswell  ap 
pended  his  chirping  response,  "I  have  read  it  through, 
but  I  did  not  find  any  great  power  in  it."  It  pleases 
me  to  think  that  they  were  chatting  about  the  very  edi 
tion  to  which  my  copy  belongs.  Later,  the  Doctor 
gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  "Akenside  was  a  superior 
poet,  both  to  Gray  and  Mason."  He  said  this  prob 
ably  to  emphasize  his  odd  dislike  of  Gray  rather 
than  to  eulogize  Akenside;  a  dislike  which  arose  from 
no  personal  jealousy  but  from  an  absolute  incompati 
bility  of  temperament.  When  he  wrote  the  Lives  of  the 
English  Poets,  he  gave  to  Akenside  a  good  deal  of  dis 
criminating  praise  mingled  with  some  well-merited 
censure.  He  was  too  much  of  a  Tory  to  relish  the 
poet's  liberal  views. 

The  prefatory  "Advertisement"  in  the  edition  of 
1772  was  written  by  the  most  devoted  of  his  friends, 
his  benefactor  Dyson,  and  the  biography  which  forms 
part  of  it  is  a  model  of  conciseness.  "The  author  of 
these  poems  was  born  in  Newcastle-upon-Tyne,  on 
the  9th  day  of  November,  1721.  He  was  educated 
at  the  Grammar  School  at  Newcastle  and  at  the  Uni 
versities  of  Edinburgh  and  Leyden,  at  the  latter  of 
which  he  took  his  degree  of  Doctor  in  Physic.  He 


*Boswell  (Birrell's  Edition),  iii,  22.    This  was  in  1772. 


7  8  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

was  afterwards  admitted  by  mandamus  to  the  degree 
of  Doctor  in  Physic  at  the  University  of  Cambridge; 
elected  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians, 
and  one  of  the  Physicians  of  St.  Thomas's  Hospital, 
and  upon  the  establishment  of  the  Queen's  Household, 
appointed  one  of  the  Physicians  to  Her  Majesty.  He 
died  of  a  putrid  fever  on  the  23d  day  of  June,  1770, 
and  is  buried  in  the  Parish  Church  of  St.  James,  West 
minster."  Dyson  might  well  have  been  a  little  more 
generous  in  his  disclosures  and  the  description  of  poor 
Akenside's  disease  seems  needlessly  offensive,  but  it 
is  characteristic  of  the  time.  Johnson  in  his  Diction 
ary  quotes  Quincey's  definition  of  "a  putrid  fever'* 
as  "that  kind  of  a  fever,  in  which  the  humours,  or  part 
of  them,  have  so  little  circulatory  motion  that  they 
fall  into  an  intestine,  die  and  putrefy."  This  luminous 
gem  of  eighteenth  century  medical  science  is  a  puzzle 
to  our  modern  understanding. 

Mark  Akenside  was  the  son  of  Mark  Akenside  and 
Mary  Lumsden,  his  wife.  His  father  was  a  butcher; 
and  Johnson,  with  the  arrogance  of  a  bigoted  disciple 
of  the  Church  of  England,  sneeringly  says  that  he  was 
"of  the  Presbyterian  sect."  When  the  young  Aken 
side  was  a  boy  of  seven,  the  butcher's  cleaver  fell  upon 
his  foot,  causing  a  lameness  which  was  always  a  source 
of  mortification  to  him.  It  is  said  that  the  accident 
rendered  it  necessary  for  him  to  wear  an  artificial 
heel.  For  a  time  he  was  under  the  tuition  of  Mr. 
Wilson,  a  dissenting  minister,  and  he  attended  the 
Grammar  School  at  Newcastle,  where,  in  later  years, 
Lord  Eldon  and  Lord  Stowell  were  pupils.  He  "com 
posed  verses"  at  an  early  age.  In  1737  he  sent  a 
poem  to  the  "Gentleman's  Magazine,"  which  was 


A  GEORGIAN  POET  79 

printed  in  that  periodical,  although  the  young  author 
was  unintroduced  and  unknown.  "It  was  entitled 
The  Virtuoso',"  says  Mr.  Gosse,  "and  was  written  in 
imitation  of  Spenser  in  the  Spenserian  measure.  The 
piece  consists  of  only  ten  stanzas,  but  they  show  a  re 
markable  skill  in  versification,  and  appear  to  have 
preceded  the  longer  and  better  known  pieces  by  Shen- 
stone,  Thomson,  and  Gilbert  Ridley,  which  soon  after 
made  the  Spenserian  stanza  fashionable."*  In  the 
August  number,  1738,  the  same  magazine  published 
"A  British  Philippic,"  directed  against  the  Spaniards, 
which  was  so  successful  that  it  was  reprinted  as  a  folio 
pamphlet.  Whether  he  actually  began  his  most  con 
spicuous  poem,  "The  Pleasures  of  the  Imagination," 
at  the  age  of  seventeen,  as  is  asserted,  may  be  doubt 
ed.  He  himself  says  that  the  plan  of  the  work  origin 
ally  occurred  to  him  during  a  visit  to  Morpeth,  within 
hearing  of  "the  mossy  falls  of  solitary  Wensbeck's 
limpid  stream";  but  like  Gibbon's  famous  account  of 
his  conception  of  the  History,  this  may  be  only  a 
poetic  way  of  recording  the  first  budding  of  an  idea 
destined  to  be  carried  out  in  an  indefinite  future.  At 
all  events  he  published  the  work  in  1744  and  must 
have  spent  some  years  in  its  composition.  Meanwhile 
he  had  been  sent,  at  eighteen,  to  the  University  of 
Edinburgh  in  order  to  prepare  for  the  ministry,  but 
he  soon  found  the  profession  of  medicine  more  attrac 
tive  than  theology. 

He  had  received  the  benefit  of  some  funds  supplied 
by  the  Dissenters  to  aid  in  the  education  of  students; 
the  Principal  of  Mansfield  College  informed  Dr.  George 
Birkbeck  Hill  that  "at  or  soon  after  the  Revolution  a 

*Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  Title  "Akenside." 


8o  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

'Fund  Board'  was  founded;  from  it  grants  were  made 
to  students  to  help  them  to  proceed  to  a  Continental  or 
Scotch  university,  or  even  to  find  education  at  home."* 
He  returned  to  the  donors  what  he  had  received,  when 
he  abandoned  the  idea  of  becoming  a  minister;  an  hon 
orable  act  which  scarcely  deserves  the  sneer  of  an  anony 
mous  American  writer,  who  makes  the  gratuitous  sug 
gestion  that  the  means  came  "obviously  out  of  some  one 
else's  pocket."  What  of  it?  He  repaid  the  money  and 
proved  his  honorable  and  commendable  judgment  of 
the  matter. 

Some  remarks  of  Doctor  Johnson  upon  this  change 
of  purpose  are  not  undeserving  of  remembrance. 
"Whether,"  says  the  old  tyrant,  whom  we  love  even 
when  he  is  most  dictatorial  and  overbearing,  "when 
he  resolved  not  to  be  a  dissenting  minister  he  ceased  to 
be  a  Dissenter,  I  know  not.  He  certainly  retained  an 
unnecessary  and  outrageous  zeal  for  what  he  called  and 
thought  liberty  :f  a  zeal  which  sometimes  disguises  from 
the  world,  and  not  rarely  from  the  mind  which  it  pos 
sesses,  an  envious  desire  of  plundering  wealth  or  de 
grading  greatness;  and  of  which  the  immediate  tend 
ency  is  innovation  and  anarchy,  an  impetuous  eagerness 
to  subvert  and  confound,  with  very  little  care  what  shall 
be  established."  There  are  several  eminent  personages 
who  enjoy  a  vast  amount  of  popularity  in  our  own  time 
who  may  well  take  to  heart  these  words  of  the  sturdy 
Doctor. 

In  Edinburgh,  Akenside  continued  to  study  for  three 
years.  He  was  made  a  member  of  the  Medical  So 
ciety  of  Edinburgh  on  December  30,  1740.  In  the  same 

*  Johnson's  Lives  (G.  B.  Hill's  Edn.),  iii,  411,  Note. 
fOriginally  "a  furious  and  outrageous  zeal,  etc."     Boswell's 
Johnson,  Birrell's  Edn. 


A  GEORGIAN  POET  81 

year  he  privately  printed  a  book  of  verses,  including 
an  ode   "On  the  Winter  Solstice,"   and  an   elegy  on 
"Love."      Dugald  Stewart,   in  his   "Elements  of  the 
Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind,"  afterwards  wrote 
of  him:     "There  are  various  passages  in  Akenside's 
works   which   will   be    read   with    additional   pleasure 
when  it  is  known  that  they  were  not  entirely  suggested 
by  fancy.      I   allude  to   those   passages  where  he   be 
trays  a  secret  consciousness   of  powers   adapted  to   a 
higher  station  of  life  than  fell  to  his  lot.     Akenside, 
when  a  medical  student  at  Edinburgh,  was  a  member 
of  the  Medical  Society,  then  recently  formed,  and  was 
eminently  distinguished  by  the  eloquence  which  he  dis 
played  in  the  course  of  the  debates.      Dr.   Robinson, 
who  was  at  that  time  a  student  of  divinity  in  the  same 
university,  told  me  that  he  was  frequently  led  to  attend 
these  meetings,  chiefly  to  hear  the  speeches  of  Aken 
side,  the  great  object  of  whose  ambition  then  was  a 
seat   in   parliament,  a   situation  which,  he  was  sanguine 
enough  to  flatter  himself,  he  had  some  prospect  of  ob 
taining,  and  for  which  he  considered  his  talents  to  be 
much  better  adapted  than  for  the  profession  he  had 
chosen."     He  was  what  was  known  as  a  "republican" 
in  sentiment,   as  poor  young  men  under  like  circum 
stances  are  apt  to  be;  but  later,  with  the  bait  of  office 
held  out  to  him,  he  experienced  a  change  of  heart.    De 
spite   his   oratorical   occupations,    he   must   have   been 
working  upon  his  poetical  masterpiece.     He  went  to 
Leyden  in   1744,  receiving  his  degree  from  that  uni 
versity  on  May  i6th  of  the  same  year. 

He  had  submitted  his  Pleasures  of  the  Imagination 
to  Dodsley  in  1743,  and  Johnson  heard  the  publisher 
relate  that  when  the  copy  was  first  offered  to  him  the 
price  asked  was  one  hundred  and  twenty  pounds — 


82  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

Nichols  says,  guineas.  The  price  was  one  which  Dods- 
ley  "was  not  inclined  to  give  precipitately";  but  he 
showed  the  manuscript  to  Pope,  who  "advised  him  not 
to  make  a  niggardly  offer,  for  this  was  not  an  every-day 
writer. "  As  it  turned  out,  the  publisher  must  have 
made  a  good  profit  from  the  transaction,  for  the  work 
became  so  popular  that  several  editions  were  exhausted 
in  quick  succession. 

The  title  had  been  used  by  Addison  in  the  Specta 
tor.  The  poem  was  published  anonymously,  and  Dr. 
Johnson  relates  a  story,  the  truth  of  which  Boswell 
doubts,  that  one  Richard  Rolt  "went  over  to  Dublin, 
published  an  edition  of  it,  and  put  his  own  name  to  it. 
Upon  the  fame  of  this  he  lived  for  several  months, 
being  entertained  at  the  best  tables  as  the  'ingenious 
Mr.  Rolt'."*  It  was  said  that  "the  demand  for  several 
successive  republications  was  so  quick"  that  the  poet 
did  not  have  sufficient  time  "in  any  of  the  intervals 
to  complete  the  whole  of  his  corrections. "t  A  cheap 
edition,  with  the  author's  name,  was  published  four 
months  after  the  original  appearance  of  the  poem. 

If  anything  further  were  needed  to  "advertise"  the 
young  author,  it  was  supplied  by  means  of  that  useful 
aid  to  the  growth  of  fame,  a  controversy.  Akenside, 
in  the  words  of  Johnson,  "adopted  Shaftesbury's  fool 
ish  assertion  of  the  efficacy  of  ridicule  for  the  discovery 
of  truth."  He  emphasized  his  approval  in  a  note,  and 
avowed  his  admiration  for  Shaftesbury  by  calling  him 
"the  noble  restorer  of  ancient  philosophy."  Warburton 
assailed  him  on  this  subject  in  Remarks  on  Several 
Occasional  Reflections  (1744),  Akenside's  friend 


*Boswell   (Birrell's  Edn.),  ii,  31. 

f Johnson's  Brit.  Poets  (G.  B.  Hill's  Edn.),  iii,  412,  Notes. 


A  GEORGIAN  POET  83 

Dyson  took  up  the  cause  in  an  Epistle  to  Mr.  Warbur- 
ton  occasioned  by  his  Treatment  of  the  Author  of  the 
Pleasures  of  the  Imagination*  the  greater  part  of 
which  Mr.  Dyce  is  inclined  to  believe  was  composed 
by  Akenside  himselff  Warburton  republished  his  re 
marks  in  a  postscript  to  The  Divine  Legation,  in  1766. 
Akenside  returned  to  the  battle  in  a  satire  on  Warbur- 
ton's  edition  of  Pope,  entitled  An  Ode  to  Thomas  Ed 
wards.^  It  was  indeed,  as  Dr.  Johnson  calls  it,  a  long 
and  eager  discussion  of  an  idle  question;  one  of  those 
wearisome  disputes  of  which  they  were  so  fond  in 
Georgian  days.  Although  Johnson  says  that  in  the  re 
vised  poem  the  lines  which  had  given  occasion  for  War- 
burton's  objections  were  omitted,  George  Birkbeck 
Hill  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  they  were  merely 
transferred,  with  a  few  minor  corrections,  from  Book 
iii,  259-277  to  Book  ii,  523-541. 

Thus  at  the  age  of  twenty-four  he  found  himself 
in  the  posession  of  a  high  literary  reputation.  On 
obtaining  his  degree  of  Doctor  of  Physic  at  Leyden, 
which,  after  only  a  month  of  study,  he  received  on  May 
1 6,  1744,  he  had  published,  according  to  the  custom 
in  the  German  University,  a  thesis  in  Latin,  called  De 
Ortu  et  Incremento  Foetus  Humani,  marked  by  some 
originality.  He  began  practice  at  Northampton;  but 
finding  Sir  James  Stonehouse,  an  eminent  physician  and 
divine,  already  in  full  possession  of  the  field,  he  re 
moved  in  1745  to  North  End,  Hampstead,  where  he 
remained  for  more  than  two  years.  It  is  worthy  of 
mention  that  after  more  than  a  century  had  passed  since 
his  brief  sojourn  there,  writers  of  "literary  pilgrim- 


*Gent.  Mag.,  1744,  p.  288. 

fDyce.  Aldine  Poets.     Akenside.     14. 

tOdes,  ii,  10  (1751). 


84  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

ages"  recorded  the  fact  that  he  dwelt  in  the  same  lit 
tle  street  where  Arbuthnot  and  Mrs.  Barbauld  once 
lived,  where  Tennyson's  mother  died,  and  where  Keats 
wrote  Endymion.  He  passed  a  good  deal  of  time  in 
the  society  of  his  friend,  Jeremiah  Dyson,  whom  he 
first  met  in  Leyden.  In  1837  Wordsworth  wrote:— 
"I  am  not  unfrequently  a  visitor  on  Hampstead  Heath, 
and  seldom  pass  by  the  entrance  of  Mr.  Dyson's  villa 
on  Golder's  Hill  close  by  without  thinking  of  the  pleas 
ure  which  Akenside  often  had  there."  He  adds:  "He 
was  fond  of  sitting  in  St.  James's  Park,  with  his  eyes 
upon  Westminster  Abbey.*  In  one  of  his  Odes,^  which 
seem  to  our  modern  taste  so  absurd  and  which  were 
never  esteemed,  Akenside  apostrophizes,  "Thy  verdant 
scenes,  O  Goulder's  hill,"  and  its  usteep  aerial  way," 
beseeching  it  to 

"Call  thy  sprightly  breezes  round, 
Dissolve   this    rigid   cough   profound." 

Golder's  Hill,  now  becoming  a  pretty  suburb  of  Lon 
don,  is  almost  classic  ground.  "This  picture  composes 
well"  said  Gainsborough,  as  he  stood  with  Sir  Joshua 
upon  the  Hill.  "Yes,  beautifully!  what  aerial  per 
spective  !"  answered  Reynolds,  "'Tis  like  viewing  Na 
ture  through  the  medium  of  a  lens."  Here  it  was  that 
Keats  wrote  on  some  scraps  of  paper,  between  break 
fast  and  lunch,  "sitting  on  a  grass-plot  under  a  plane 
tree,"  the  "Ode  to  the  Nightingale."  Akenside  also  re 
fers  to  his  friend,  Mr.  Cofferer  Dyson,  observing 
that— 


*Memoirs  of  Wordsworth,  1851,  ii,  350. 

fOn  Recovering  from  a  Fit  of  Sickness  in  the  Country,  ii,  12. 


A  GEORGIAN  POET  85 

"While  around  his  sylvan  scene 
My  Dyson  led  the  white  wing'd  hours, 
Oft  from  the  Athenian  Academic  bowers 
Their  sages  came." 

Leaving  Hampstead  to  seek  a  wider  field,  he  decided 
to  remove  to  London.  Hawkins  says  that  Dyson  and 
Akenside  "dwelt  together  at  North  End,  Hampstead, 
during  the  summer,  frequenting  the  Long  Room  and  all 
Clubs  and  Assemblies  of  the  inhabitants" ;  and  now  this 
rich  and  devoted  friend  "settled  him  in  a  small  house  in 
Bloomsbury  Square,  and  enabled  him  to  keep  a  char 
iot."*  The  generous  benefactor  further  allowed  him 
£300  a  year  and  set  to  work  to  gain  for  the  poet-phy 
sician  a  comfortable  practice. 

Dyson  was  a  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  after 
wards  Cofferer  to  the  Houshold.  He  did  something  be 
sides  "leading  the  white  wing'd  hours,"  for  "he  was 
supposed  to  have  all  the  Journals  of  the  House  of 
Commons  by  heart"t — rather  a  vigorous  supposition. 
On  March  23,  1774,  Horace  Walpole  wrote  of  Gren- 
ville's  bill  for  trying  elections:  "It  passed  as  rapidly 
as  if  it  had  been  for  a  repeal  of  Magna  Charta, 
brought  in  by  Mr.  Cofferer  Dyson."  Mr.  Dyce  gives 
a  passage  from  an  early  letter  of  Akenside  to  Dyson,1f 
in  which  he  writes:  "I  never  think  of  my  connection 
with  you  without  being  happier  and  better  for  the  re 
flection.  I  enjoy,  by  means  of  it,  a  more  animated,  a 
more  perfect  relish  of  every  social,  of  every  natural 
pleasure.  My  own  character,  by  means  of  it,  is  become 
an  object  of  veneration  and  applause  to  myself."  Dr. 


*Hawkins'  Johnson,  p.  243. 
fGent.  Mag.,  1776,  p.  416. 

IJDyce,    19;  G.  B.   Hill's  Notes  to  Johnson's  Akenside,  iii, 
414. 


86  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

Hill  thinks  that  if  this  had  been  written  later  "it  would 
have  been  thought  a  parody  of  Boswell  in  his  let 
ters  to  Johnson."  Dyson  certainly  gave  substantial 
proof  of  his  affection. 

Akenside  had  not  accomplished  much  in  his  prac 
tice  at  Northampton  and  Hampstead  and  it  cannot  be 
said  that  in  the  beginning  he  was  very  successful  in 
London.  Mr.  Gosse  remarks  that  "the  faults  of  his 
intellect  and  his  character  now  began  to  reveal  them 
selves.  He  became  mentally  fossilized  by  pedantry 
and  conceit,  and  he  gave  way  to  a  native  tendency  to 
arrogance,  which  grew  to  be  a  great  disadvantage 
to  him."  No  doubt  he  was  spoiled  by  Dysonian  mu 
nificence.  He  was  made  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  So 
ciety  and  also  a  Fellow  of  the  College  of  Physicians 
in  1754.  His  Cambridge  degree,  awarded  in  Janu 
ary*  J753>  was>  as  we  have  seen,  conferred  "by  man 
damus,"  by  which  is  doubtless  meant  that  it  was  given 
in  pursuance  of  a  request  from  the  Chancellor  of  the 
University.  As  physician  to  St.  Thomas's  Hospital 
and  fourth  censor  of  the  College,  he  read  the  Gul- 
stonian  lectures  in  Anatomy  in  1755,  a  course  estab 
lished  in  the  seventeenth  century  by  Theodore  Gouls- 
ton  or  Gulston.  In  these  lectures  he  advanced  opin 
ions  in  regard  to  "the  lymphatics"  in  opposition  to 
those  of  Boerhave,  which  showed  his  courage.  This 
gave  rise  to  a  dispute  with  Dr.  Alexander  Monro, 
then  an  eminent  professor  of  anatomy  in  Edinburgh, 
who  accused  Akenside  of  plagiarism  from  him,  but 
the  better  opinion  is  that  he  did  not  substantiate  his 
accusation.  In  1756  he  delivered  the  Crounian  lec 
tures.  This  was  a  course  founded  by  the  widow  of 
Croone  or  Croune,  in  1706.  Dr.  Johnson  says  that 
he  "began  to  give  for  these  lectures  a  history  of  the 


A  GEORGIAN  POET  87 

Revival  of  Learning,  from  which  he  soon  desisted." 
Kippis  in  Biographica  Britannica  (i.  107),  whom 
Johnson  closely  follows,  says  that  "he  gave  up  the 
course  in  disgust,"  because  some  objected  to  the  sub 
ject  as  "foreign  to  the  institution,"  but  Mr.  Dyce 
remarks  that  "the  course  is  always  of  three  lectures, 
and  three  he  gave."  He  was  not,  however,  fitted  for 
the  practice  of  medicine.  It  is  very  well  for  friendly 
writers  to  say  that  "he  possessed  too  much  independ 
ence  of  mind  to  have  recourse  to  those  artifices  by 
which  medical  men  in  too  many  instances  contrive  to 
creep  into  practice";  that  is  the  common  excuse  for 
men  who  fail.  He  was  unfitted  by  temperament  for 
the  duties  of  a  profession  which  demands  the  most 
gentle  tact,  the  most  cheerful  self-sacrifice  and  the 
most  unremitting  labor  to  ensure  reputation  and  suc 
cess.  We  read  much  of  the  roughness  and  brusque- 
ness  of  men  like  Abernethy,  but  with  Akenside  the 
faults  were  not  merely  of  manner;  they  were  faults 
of  character.  He  was  utterly  unsympathetic.  Still, 
it  is  said  that  towards  the  close  of  his  life  his  prac 
tice  had  become  "very  large  and  fashionable." 

In  London  he  devoted  little  time  to  poetry,  but  he 
.published  several  medical  essays,  a  list  of  which  is 
given  in  Biographica  Britannica.  Among  these  was  a 
discourse  on  the  dysentery  (De  Dysenteria  Commen- 
tarius,  1764),  much  praised  for  its  Latinity.  In 
March,  1745,  he  had  put  forth  his  collection  of  Odes, 
and  in  November,  1744,  The  Epistle  to  Curio,  a  satire 
on  William  Pulteney,  which  many  regarded  as  his 
best  poem.  Macaulay  said  of  it:  "If  Akenside  had 
left  lyric  composition  to  Gray  and  Collins,  and  had 
employed  his  powers  in  grave  and  elevated  satire,  he 
might  have  disputed  the  preeminence  of  Dryden." 


88  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

Pulteney  had  opposed  Walpole,  and  those  who,  like 
Akenside,  were  hoping  for  reform,  looked  upon  him  as 
the  leader  of  "the  better  element,"  but  when  Pulteney 
became  a  peer  and  surrendered  to  the  forces  of  cor 
ruption,  they  poured  forth  upon  him  their  vials  of 
wrath  and  likened  him  to  that  Curio,  the  friend  of 
Cicero,  who  had  been  the  advocate  of  liberty  but  who 
went  over  to  Caesar  from  motives  of  personal  ambi 
tion.  The  poet  tells  of  the  lofty  expectations  enter 
tained  of  Curio's  patriotic  and  disinterested  zeal  for 
freedom,  but  lamenting  that  when  the  "deciding  hour" 
arrived  he  proved  false,  exclaims: 

"  Twas  then— O  shame!  O  trust  how  ill  repaid! 
O  Latium,  oft  by  faithless  sons  betrayed ! — 
'Twas  then— What  frenzy  on  thy  reason  stole? 
What  spells  unsinewed  thy  determined  soul  ? 
Is  this  the  man  in  Freedom's  cause  approved? 
The  man  so  great,  so  honoured,  so  beloved? 
This  patient  slave  by  tinsel  chains  allured? 
This  wretched  suitor  for  a  boon  abjured? 
This  Curio,  hated  and  despised  by  all, 
Who  fell  himself  to  work  his  country's  fall?" 

The  final  verses  are  not  without  dignity  when  he 
says  of  "wise  liberty" : 

"Protect  her  from  yourselves,  ere  yet  the  flood 
Of  golden  luxury,  which  commerce  pours 
Hath    spread    that    selfish    fierceness    through    your 

blood, 

Which  not  her  highest  discipline  indures. 
Snatch  from  fantastic  demagogues  her  cause; 
Dream  not  of  Numa's  manners,  Plato's  laws, 
A  wiser  founder  and  a  nobler  plan, 
O  sons  of  Alfred,  were  for  you  assigned: 
Bring  to  that  birthright  but  an  equal  mind, 
And  no  sublimer  lot  will  fate  reserve  for  man." 


A  GEORGIAN  POET  89 

Beset  by  his  propensity  to  rewrite  his  productions,  he 
transformed  the  Epistle  into  an  Ode  and  in  the  proc 
ess  weakened  it  sadly. 

The  Odes  were  his  poorest  compositions.  ''Nothing 
favorable  can  be  said"  of  them,  according  to  Johnson. 
Horace  Walpole,  writing  on  March  29,  1745,  after 
referring  to  Lee,  adds:  "There  is  another  of  those 
tame  geniuses,  a  Mr.  Akenside,  who  writes  Odes;  in 
one  he  says:  'Light  the  tapers,  urge  the  fire.'  "  Gray 
wrote  on  March  8,  1758,  of  Dodsley's  Collection, 
"The  two  last  volumes  are  worse  than  the  four  first; 
particularly  Dr.  Akenside  is  in  a  deplorable  way."  No 
one  seems  to  have  had  a  good  word  for  them.  He 
was  hampered  by  rhymes.  As  the  savage  Quarterly 
said  of  Keats  in  the  memorable  review  of  Endy- 
mion,  "He  seems  to  us  to  write  a  line  at  random,  and 
then  he  follows  not  the  thought  excited  by  this  line 
but  that  suggested  by  the  rhyme  with  which  it  con 
cludes.  There  is  hardly  a  complete  couplet  inclosing  a 
complete  idea  in  the  whole  book."  In  blank  verse,  as 
Johnson  points  out,  Akenside  was  exempt  from  the 
necessity  of  closing  the  sense  with  the  couplet;  and 
there  was  no  interference  with  the  exuberance  of  his 
imagery  and  description.*  In  1746  he  wrote  the  "Hymn 
to  the  Naiads,"  mention  of  which  will  be  made  later  on; 
in  January,  1746,  he  became  editor  of  the  Museum, 
Dodsley's  magazine,  for  which  he  wrote  prose  essays; 
in  1748  he  published  "Ode  to  the  Earl  of  Huntingdon; 
in  1749,  "The  Remonstrance  of  Shakespeare,"  and  in 
1758,  "An  Ode  to  the  Country  Gentlemen  of  England," 
as  well  as  a  large  number  of  new  pieces,  including  "The 
Hymn  to  the  Naiads,"  which  he  put  forth  in  the  sixth 


-Dyce,  p.  49. 


90  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

volume  of  Dodsley's  "Miscellany."  The  "Call  to 
Aristippus,"  a  pamphlet  in  verse,  appeared  in  1758. 

His  service  as  physician  in  the  Hospital — where 
he  became  assistant  in  January,  1759,  and  two  months 
later  principal  physician — was  not  distinguished  by 
much  success,  however  sound  may  have  been  his  medi 
cal  learning  or  however  great  his  skill.  Dr.  Lettsom, 
who  was  a  student  there,  is  reported  as  saying  that  "he 
was  the  most  supercilious  and  unfeeling  physician  that 
he  had  hitherto  known."  His  temper  was  bad;  he 
was  foolishly  proud  and  arrogant,  brutal  in  his  be 
havior  to  the  poorer  class  of  patients;  involved  by  his 
irascible  nature  in  perpetual  disputes.  He  changed  his 
politics  and  became  a  Tory  to  obtain  the  post  of  Phy 
sician  to  the  Queen  in  1761;  but  then,  as  now,  party 
ties  sat  loosely  upon  men  when  it  was  a  question  of 
place;  enthusiasts  for  liberty  and  popular  rights  are 
generally  not  unlike  the  two  Kings  of  Barataria  in  The 
Gondoliers.  Many  excuses  have  been  urged  for  his 
failings;  his  lowly  birth,  his  delicate  health,  his  irrita 
ble  nerves,  his  early  success,  and  the  insolent  caste  feel 
ing  of  society,  which  aroused  all  the  bitterness  of  a  sen 
sitive  disposition. 

That  he  was  highly  esteemed  as  a  poet  is  beyond  dis 
pute.  We  know  what  Pope  thought  of  him  before  he 
became  famous.  Upon  the  publication  of  his  Ode  to 
the  Country  Gentlemen  of  England,  the  Monthly  Re 
view  said  he  "well  deserved  to  be  stiled  the  Poet  of 
the  Community,"  and  Doctor  Johnson  not  only  wrote 
that  "he  is  to  be  commended  as  having  fewer  artifices 
of  disgust  than  most  of  his  brethren  of  the  blank  song," 
but  said  of  The  Pleasures  of  the  Imagination  that  it 
was  "an  example  of  great  felicity  of  genius  and  uncom 
mon  amplitude  of  acquisitions." 


A  GEORGIAN  POET  91 

He  talked  well,  although  devoid  of  any  sense  of 
humor,  and  he  never  mastered  the  peculiar  style  of 
rough  repartee  which  was  so  much  in  vogue  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  He  avoided  "the  bibulous  and  glu- 
tonous  element"  of  that  period.  It  is  written  of  him 
that  his  "outward  ensemble  was  eminently  what  the  vul 
gar  would  term  'guyable.'  He  was  not  a  little  of  a  fop. 
He  was  plain-featured  and  yet  assuming  in  manner. 

*  *  His  prim  formality  of  manner,  his  sword  and 
stiff-curled  wig,  his  small  and  sickly  face  trying  to  main 
tain  an  expression  impressively  dignified,  made  him  a 
ludicrous  figure,  which  his  contemporaries  never  tired 
of  ridiculing  and  caricaturing."*  Henderson,  the  ac 
tor,  said  that  Akenside,  when  he  walked  the  streets, 
looked  for  all  the  world  like  one  of  his  own  Alexan 
drines  set  upright."f  Smollett  made  fun  of  him  in 
Peregrine  Pickle,  where  he  served  as  a  model  for  the 
physician  who  gave  a  comical  dinner  in  the  fashion  of 
the  ancients,  and  who  was  "a  young  man  in  whose  air 
and  countenance  appeared  all  the  uncouth  gravity  and 
supercilious  self-conceit  of  a  physician  piping  hot  from 
his  studies.Tf  *  *  *  Not  contented  with  display 
ing  his  importance  in  the  world  of  taste  and  po 
lite  literature,  his  vanity  manifested  itself  in  ar 
rogating  certain  material  discoveries  in  the  prov 
ince  of  physick.  *  *  *  He  was  strangely  possessed 
with  the  opinion  that  he  himself  was  inspired  by  the 
soul  of  Pindar."  But  it  was  something  to  have  been 
burlesqued  by  Smollett. 

One  of  his  biographers,  Charles  Bucke,  says  of  him : 


*See  sketch  in  World's  Best  Literature,  vol.  I. 

fDyce,  76. 

^Peregrine  Pickle,  42,  43. 


92  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

"The  features  of  Akenside  were  expressive  and  manly 
in  a  very  high  degree;  but  his  complexion  was  pale, 
and  his  deportment  solemn.     He  dressed  too  in  a  very 
precise  manner,  and  wore  a  powdered  wig  in  stiff  curl. 
In  respect  to  disposition,  he  is  said  to  have  been  irrita 
ble,  and  to  have  had  little  restraint  of  his  temper  be 
fore  strangers,  with  whom  he  was  precise  and  cere 
monious,  stiff,  and  occasionally  sententious  and  dicta 
torial.  *      *     He  had  a  high  sense  of  his  own 
merits,  and  when  persons  of  an  inferior  cast  presumed 
upon  their  ignorance,  or  want  of  good  breeding,  to  in 
trude  their  observations  too  unceremoniously,  Aken 
side  denied  himself  the  satisfaction  of  chastising  their 
presumption  by  the  adoption  of  a  manner  perhaps  too 
severe,  satirical,  and  splenetic.     But  in  the  society  of 
those  mild  and  gentle  spirits  who  admired  his  genius 
and  respected  his  virtues,  he  was  kindness  itself.     His 
language  flowed  chastely,  gracefully,  and  eloquently; 
and  his  varied  knowledge,  argumentative  reasonings, 
and   nice   distinctions,   his   fine   appreciation   of   philo 
sophical  allusions,  and  keen  relish  for  the  beauties  of 
creation,  would  display  themselves  in  pure  and  copious 
streams  of  eloquence,  never,  perhaps,  surpassed  by  the 
greatest  masters  of  social  life  the  world  ever  knew. 
His  memory  was  at  once  discriminating  and  compre 
hensive.     He  retained  all  the  riches  of  art,  science, 
and  history,  legislation,  poetry,   and  philosophy;  and 
these  he  would  draw  out  and  embody  to  suit  the  occa 
sion   required,   in   a   manner   not  more   wonderful   to 
those  who  were  partially  informed  than  delightful  to 
those  who  could  follow  his  track,  and  continue  with 
him  to  the  end.     Yet  he  is  said  to  have  in  general, 
wanted  gaiety  of  heart  in  society.     He  was  naturally 
of   a   cheerful   temper;  but  his   cheerfulness  was   ac 
companied  by  a  mellowness  of  feeling  which  some 
times  relapsed  into  melancholy." 

A  cheerful,  mellow  melancholy  must  be  a  wonderful 
thing.  All  this,  which  the  artless  biographer — who  is 
guiltless  of  the  italics— doubtless  meant  for  praise,  es- 


A  GEORGIAN  POET  93 

tablishes  the  fact  that  Akenside  was  a  solemn,  dis 
agreeable,  conceited  creature  of  the  species  to  which 
men  in  nearly  every  age  have  given  the  title  of  "ass", 
—never  pleasant  except  when  surrounded  by  flatterers, 
and  even  under  such  favorable  conditions  a  stupendous, 
lugubrious  bore,  always  a  cad  of  the  most  offensive  sort. 
It  is  perhaps  one  of  the  blessings  of  our  day  that  in 
conversation  "pure  and  copious  streams  of  eloquence" 
are  quickly  and  effectually  dammed. 

Mr.  Gosse  quotes  from  a  contemporary  of  the  poet 
this  description: 

"One  leg  of  Dr.  Akenside  was  considerably  shorter 
than  the  other,  which  was  in  some  measure  remedied 
by  the  aid  of  a  false  heel.  He  had  a  pale,  strumous 
countenance,  but  was  always  very  neat  and  elegant  in 
his  dress.  He  wore  a  large  white  wig  and  carried  a 
long  sword.  He  would  order  the  servants  (at  Christ's 
Hospital)  on  his  visiting  days  to  precede  him  with 
brooms  to  clear  the  way,  and  prevent  the  patients 
from  too  nearly  approaching  him." 

When  Johnson  made  his  well-known  remark  about 
the  jealousy  which  some  men  feel  in  regard  to  friends 
who  rise  above  them,  he  moved  Boswell  to  refer,  as  an 
example,  to  the  withering  of  "the  early  friendship  be 
tween  Charles  Townshend  and  Akenside."  The  latter 
alludes  to  it  himself  when  he  says,  in  his  "Ode  to 
Townshend": 

"For  not  imprudent  of  my  loss  to  come, 
I  saw  from  Contemplation's  quiet  cell 
His  feet  ascending  to  another  home, 

Where  public  praise  and  envied  greatness  dwell." 

It  is  more  charitable  to  think  that  the  cessation  of 
their  intimacy  was  due  more  to  the  absorption  of 
Townshend  in  his  career  as  "the  spoiled  child  of  the 


94  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

House  of  Commons"  than  to  petty  envy  on  AkensioVs 
part.  Notwithstanding  the  personal  peculiarities  of 
the  poet  he  appears  to  have  had  the  faculty  of  winning 
friends,  from  the  time  when,  at  an  early  age,  he  at 
tracted  the  regard  of  Doctor  Philip  Doddridge,  the 
hymn  writer.  Hawkins  says  that  "his  conversation  was 
of  the  most  delightful  kind,"  but  that  he  lacked  "that 
quality  which  Swift  somewhere  calls  an  aldermanly  vir 
tue,  discretion."* 

Warton  thought  that  "of  all  our  poets  perhaps  Aken- 
side  was  the  best  Greek  scholar  since  Milton. "f  It  is 
interesting  to  know  that  he  was  not  a  good  reader  of 
his  own  verse.H  His  great  biographer  refers  to  his  am 
bitious  ostentation  of  elegance  and  literature,  and  re 
gards  him  as  having  a  high  place  "among  the  wits"; 
but  Johnson  did  not  use  the  word  in  the  sense  to  which 
modern  usage  has  restricted  it;  he  meant  only  "those 
who  have  knowledge." 

His  poetry  was  technical  rhetoric  usually  displayed 
in  good  blank  verse ;  but  it  was  pedantic  and  prosaic  at 
its  best.  Doctor  Minto  seems  to  think  that  his  admira 
tion  of  Shakespeare  is  quite  commendable,  and  in  the 
book  from  which  we  have  quoted  gives  twice  a  long 
extract  from  the  "Remonstrance"  which  Akenside  saw 
fit  to  deliver  in  1749  when  a  company  of  French  play 
ers  acted  by  subscription  at  Drury  Lane,  in  which  the 
"Bard  of  Avon",  as  the  pompous  physician  probably 
called  him,  is  made  to  protest  against  the  ruthless  "in 
vasion  of  his  domain."  His  favorites,  however,  were 
Pope,  Addison,  Shaftesbury,  and  Hutchinson,  from 


*Hawkins'  Johnson,  242,  247. 
f  Essay  on  Pope,  ii,  455. 
,  53- 


A  GEORGIAN  POET  95 

whom,  as  well  as  from  Plato,  he  took  most  of  his  ma 
terial.  But  we  cannot  forget  that  his  principal  work 
was  the  precursor  of  Campbell's  Pleasures  of  Hope 
and  of  Rogers'  Pleasures  of  Memory,  although  both 
of  these  more  modern  poems  are  almost  as  obsolete  as 
their  prototype. 

Expressions  of  personal  preference  are  dangerous 
now,  because  the  youthful  sages  who  "do"  the  book 
reviews  in  the  newspapers  are  the  only  critics  who  are 
permitted  to  indulge  in  them.  When  ordinary  men 
venture  to  infringe  upon  this  journalistic  monopoly  and 
timidly  disclose  their  own  views,  they  are  told  that  "to 
people  who  have  the  habit  of  thinking  for  themselves 
they  are  unsatisfactory"* — whereby  all  criticism  is 
wiped  from  the  earth  by  one  Podsnappian  wave  of  the 
hand.  But  as  newspaper  reviewers  neither  know  nor 
care  much  about  Akenside — should  one  of  them  ever 
deign  to  cast  his  lordly  eye  upon  this  page  he  will  forth 
with  insist  that  he  has  been  familiar  with  Akenside 
from  his  cradle— I  may  perhaps  be  suffered  to  say  that 
I  like  best  his  "Hymn  to  the  Naiads,"  notwithstanding 
its  ponderous  dignity,  not  altogether  appropriate  in  an 
address  to  nymphs.  Gosse  says  that  it  is  beautiful  and 
perhaps  the  most  "elegant"  of  his  productions.  There 
is  power  in  the  lines: 

"Down  they  rush 

*rom  Nysa  s  vine-impurpled  cliff,  the  dames 
Of  Thrace,  the  Satyrs,  and  the  unruly  Fawns, 
With  old  Silenus,  reeling  through  the  crowd 
Which  gambols  round  him,  in  convulsions  wild 
Tossing  their  limbs,  and  brandishing  in  air 
The  ivy-mantled  thyrsus,  or  the  torch 

*The  New  York  Times,  July  10,  1909. 


96  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

Through  black  smoke  flaming,  to  the  Phrygian  pipe's 
Shrill  voice,  and  to  the  clashing  cymbals  mix'd 
With  shrieks  and  frantic  uproar." 

One  of  the  odes  affords  a  fair  example  of  what  may 
be  regarded  as  his  best  style — "On  a  Sermon  against 
Glory"- 

"Come,  then,  tell  me,  sage  divine, 

Is  it  an  offense  to  own 
That  our  bosoms  e'er  incline 

Toward  immortal  glory's  throne? 
For  with  me  nor  pomp,  nor  pleasure, 
Bourbon's  might,  Braganza's  treasure, 
So  can  fancy's  dream  rejoice 
To  conciliate  reason's  choice, 
As  one  approving  word  of  her  impartial  voice. 

If  to  spurn  at  noble  praise 

Be  the  passport  to  thy  heaven, 
Follow  thou  those  gloomy  ways : 

No  such  law  to  me  was  given. 
Nor,  I  trust,  shall  I  deplore  me 
Faring  like  my  friends  before  me; 
Nor  an  holier  place  desire 
Than  Timoleon's  arms  acquire, 
And  Tully's  curule  chair,  and  Milton's  golden  lyre." 

The  most  important  of  the  poems,  comprising  about 
two  thousand  lines,  divided  into  three  Books,  was  an 
attempt  to  describe  the  sources,  methods,  and  results 
of  imagination  and  to  portray  the  pleasurable  feelings 
derived  from  its  exercise,  and  from  the  study  of  nature, 
art,  and  history.  He  announces  his  purpose  at  the  out 
set: 

"With  what  attractive  charms  this  goodly  frame 
Of  nature  touches  the  consenting  hearts 


A  GEORGIAN  POET  97 

Of  mortal  men;  and  what  the  pleasing  stores 
Which  beauteous  imitation  thence  derives 
To  deck  the  poet's  or  the  painter's  toil; 
My  verse  unfolds." 

But  it  is  not  desirable  to  multiply  quotations  from 
long  poems:  they  seldom  do  full  justice  to  the  author 
and  when  torn  from  the  context  are  of  little  value  in 
enabling  a  reader  to  arrive  at  a  fair  judgment.  Aken- 
side's  works  are  included  in  almost  every  collection  of 
"British  Poets,"  and  if  any  one  has  sufficient  curiosity 
to  pursue  the  subject,  the  means  of  information  are 
within  easy  reach.  The  standard  edition  is  that  which 
was  edited  by  Alexander  Dyce  and  published  in  1834. 

Much  has  been  written  about  The  Pleasures  of  the 
Imagination,  and  the  reviewers  unite  in  ascribing  to  it 
the  merits  of  elevated  sentiments,  poetic  beauty,  and 
high  philosophy,  expressed  in  dignified  measures  and 
harmonious  periods;  but  they  temper  their  praise  by  re 
ferring  to  the  length  of  the  sentences,  the  needless  mul 
tiplication  of  words,  and  the  redundancy  of  the  imagery. 
Campbell  analyzes  the  work,  but  while  he  concedes  to 
the  poet  a  high  zeal  of  classical  feeling  and  a  graceful 
development  of  the  philosophy  of  taste  in  the  purely 
ethical  and  didactic  parts  of  his  subject,  he  thinks  that 
sweetness  is  wanting,  that  the  writer  does  not  arouse 
the  emotions,  and  that  he  appeals  too  seldom  to  ex 
amples  from  nature.*  Campbell  dwells  upon  the  cold 
ness  and  tediousness  of  the  episode  of  Harmodius, 
omitted  in  the  revision ;  and  another  commentator  says : 

"Much  of  it  (note  especially  the  episode  of  Pisis- 
tratus  at  the  beginning  of  Book  III)  is  literally  prose 
cut  into  lengths."  The  reader  of  to-day  will  find  his 


'Campbell's  Specimens  of  the  British  Poets. 


9 8  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

own  impressions  well  described  in  the  Life  by  John 
son:  "His  images  are  displayed  with  such  luxuriance 
of  expression,  that  they  are  hidden,  like  Butler's 
Moon,  by  a  'Veil  of  Light' ;  they  are  forms  fantas 
tically  lost  under  superfluity  of  dress.  Pars  minima 
est  ipsa  puella  sui.  The  words  are  multiplied  till  the 
sense  is  hardly  perceived;  attention  deserts  the  mind, 
and  settles  in  the  ear.  The  reader  wanders  through 
the  gay  diffusion,  sometimes  amazed,  and  sometimes 
delighted;  but  after  many  turnings  in  the  flowery  laby 
rinth,  comes  out  as  he  went  in.  He  marked  little, 
and  laid  hold  on  nothing." 

Gray  wrote  of  it  on  April  26,  1744: 

"To  show  you  that  I  am  a  judge,  as  well  as  my  coun 
trymen,  I  will  tell  you,  though  I  have  rather  turned  it 
over  than  read  it  (but  no  matter,  no  more  have  they), 
that  it  seems  to  me  above  the  middling;  and  now  and 
then  for  a  little  while,  rises  even  to  the  best,  particularly 
in  description.  It  is  often  obscure  and  even  unintel 
ligible,  and  too  much  affected  with  the  Hutchinsonian 
jargon.  In  short,  its  great  fault  is  that  it  was  pub 
lished  at  least  nine  years  too  early;  and  so  methinks, 
in  a  few  words,  a  la  mode  de  Temple,  I  have  very 
pertly  despatched  what,  perhaps,  may  for  several 
years  have  employed  a  very  ingenious  man,  worth 
fifty  of  myself." 

Hazlitt  indeed  liked  the  revised  poem  best,  but  he 
was  alone  in  his  opinion  as  far  as  I  can  ascertain.  But 
Gray  disliked  Akenside  "and  in  general  all  poetry  in 
blank  verse  except  Milton." 

He  could  not  let  his  chief  poem  alone;  and  from 
1757  until  his  death  he  was  engaged  in  remodeling  it. 
Both  versions,  original  and  revised,  are  given  in  the 
edition  of  1772.  He  began  a  fourth  book,  but  wrote 


A  GEORGIAN  POET  99 

only  one  hundred  and  thirty  lines.  It  was  from  this 
unfinished  book  that  Wordsworth  took  the  motto  to 
Yarrow  Revisited  and  Other  Poems  (1835), 

"Poets     *      *      *     dwell  on  earth 
To  clothe  whate'er  the  soul  admires  and  [or]  loves 
With  language  and  with  numbers." 

The  later  revision  exemplifies  the  truth  of  the  theory 
that  poets  seldom  improve  their  published  work  by 
emendations.  Doctor  Johnson  says  of  the  revision  that 
"he  seems  to  have  somewhat  contracted  his  diffusion; 
but  I  know  not  whether  he  has  gained  in  closeness  what 
he  has  lost  in  splendor."  Macaulay  says  he  spoiled  it, 
and  another  critic  observes  that  he  "stuffed  it  with  in 
tellectual  horsehair."  The  truth  of  these  remarks  may 
be  perceived  by  comparing  these  opening  lines  of  the 
revision  with  the  corresponding  lines  of  the  original: 

"With  what  enchantment  nature's  goodly  scene 
Attracts  the  sense  of  mortals;  how  the  mind 
For  its  own  eye  doth  objects  nobler  still 
Prepare;  how  men  by  various  lessons  learn 
To  judge  of  beauty's  praise;  what  raptures  fill 
The  breast  with  fancy's  native  arts  indow'd 
And  what  true  culture  guides  it  to   renown; 
My  verse  unfolds." 

The  original  is  stiff  enough,  but  this  is  even  more  stilted. 
It  is  not  discreditable  to  him  that  he  should  have 
regarded  his  work  so  seriously  as  to  toil  over  it  in  the 
hope  of  improving  it;  but  the  first  glow  of  his  youthful 
enthusiasm  was  better  than  the  laborious  effort  of  his 
maturity.  He  did,  however,  anticipate  some  of  Doc 
tor  Johnson's  criticisms.  The  Doctor  complained  of  the 
viewing  of  "the  Ganges  from  Alpine  heights"  in  the 
lines  (Book  i,  177)  — 


ioo  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

"Who  that  from  Alpine  heights,  his  labouring  eye 
Shoots  round  the  wide  horizon,  to  survey 
Nilus  or  Ganges  rolling  his  bright  wave." 

This  had  been  changed  so  as  to  read: 

"Who  that  from  heights  aerial  sends  his  eye 
Around  a  wild  horizon,  and  surveys 
Indus  or  Ganges  rolling  his  broad  wave." 

(Book  i,  line  232,  Revision.) 

The  Doctor  further  said:  "And  the  pedant  surely 
intrudes— but  when  was  blank  verse  without  pedantry? 
—when  he  tells  how  "  'Planets  absolve  the  fated  rounds 
of  Time.'  '  But  the  lines  (Book  i,  194)  were  changed 
in  the  later  work  and  are : 

"Bend  the  reluctant  planets  to  move  each 
Round  its  perpetual  year." 

(Book  i,  line  252,  Revision.) 

This  indicates  that  Johnson  had  never  taken  the 
trouble  to  read  the  revised  poem. 

In  the  latter  part  of  his  life  he  produced  an  occasion 
al  ode  or  dissertation.  He  lived  for  a  time  in  Craven 
street,  but  removed  in  1760  to  a  house  in  Burlington 
street  which  he  occupied  at  the  time  of  his  death.  He 
was  only  in  his  forty-ninth  year  when,  on  June  23, 
1770,  he  was  carried  away  by  that  "putrid  fever,"  and 
it  is  a  coincidence  that  Shenstone  died  at  the  same  age 
and  of  the  same  disease.  It  is  said  that  he  died  in  the 
bed  in  which  Milton  died.  On  June  28  he  was  buried 
in  the  church  of  St.  James. 

There  was  no  mention  of  his  death  in  the  Annual 
Register  or  even  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  to  which 
he  had  been  so  frequent  a  contributor.  His  life  was 


A  GEORGIAN 

by  no  means  a  failure :  he  attracted  the  attention  of  his 
contemporaries;  his  poems  were  admired  in  his  own 
generation;  and  although  he  was  never  the  idol  of  an 
hour,  his  merits  were  recognized  by  the  leaders  of 
thought  in  his  day.  He  has  won  immortality  of  a  cer 
tain  kind,  although  not  the  immortality  of  quotation. 
He  foreshadowed  in  a  vague  way  the  return  of  the 
poet  to  the  field  of  nature.  He  was  toiling  under  cir 
cumstances  which  were  not  favorable  to  his  work.  It 
has  been  observed  that  the  poet  "should  preach  or  poet 
ize  for  his  age,  should  elevate  and  beautify  the  ideas 
which  are  current  in  it."  But  the  ideas  which  were 
current  in  England  during  his  time  were  not  susceptible 
of  much  beautifying  or  elevation.  A  lofty  and  orig 
inal  genius  might  have  accomplished  something  in  that 
direction,  but  Akenside  had  little  or  no  originality;  he 
built  up  his  verses  with  materials  derived  from  the 
books  which  he  preferred;  he  was  a  manufactured  poet, 
without  a  spark  of  genius.  Despite  his  vanity  and  con 
ceit,  he  must  have  had  an  uneasy  consciousness  of  the 
inferiority  of  his  work,  or  he  would  not  have  wasted 
so  much  time  in  amending  it  and  striving  to  polish  it 
when  what  was  needed  was  substance  rather  than  pol 
ish.  The  mania  for  revising  one's  own  work  almost 
always  indicates  irresolution  and  a  lack  of  confidence  in 
its  merit. 

He  was  about  the  latest  of  the  machine  poets.  The 
year  of  his  death  was  the  year  of  Wordsworth's  birth; 
and  as  with  the  elder  poet  the  sun  of  the  old  school  was 
setting,  with  the  younger  poet  began  the  dawn  of  the 
day  when  the  artificial  vanished  and  the  fragrance  of 
the  early  morning  of  poesy  once  more  rejoiced  the 
minds  and  the  senses  of  mankind. 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER 

I 

A    SUCCESSFUL  lawyer  whose  name  is  as 
sociated  with  no  great  causes;  a  leader 
in    literature    whose    only   book   was    a 
mere  collection  of  essays  reprinted  from 
a  magazine;  a  renowned  talker  who  left 
to  posterity  no  legacy  of  memorable  sayings;  Francis 
Jeffrey  owes  his  fame,  or  so  much  of  it  as  survives 
him  sixty  years  after  his  death,  chiefly  to  his  work  as 
a  writer  of  reviews. 

The  popularity  and  influence  of  periodical  Re 
views  have  suffered  so  seriously  in  these  days  of  mod 
ern  culture  that  they  may  be  said  to  have  disappeared. 
But  there  was  a  time  when  the  Review  was  all-power 
ful.  Whether  its  decline  is  due  to  the  vast  increase  in 
the  number  of  readers,  or  to  the  lowering  of  the  level 
of  education,  or  to  the  fact— if  it  be  a  fact— announced 
recently  by  a  publisher,  that  "to-day  the  popular  au 
thor  addresses  himself  to  women,  since  men  no  longer 
read  books,"  or  to  the  growing  independence  of  read 
ers  who  resent  attempts  to  guide  or  to  control  their 
judgments,  only  one  extremely  sure  of  himself  would 
attempt  to  decide.  The  authority  of  the  Review  was 
never  as  great  in  America  as  it  was  in  England;  the 
old  North  American,  sufficiently  heavy  in  its  prime, 
ponderously  imitative  of  British  models,  was  the  sole 
publication  of  that  character  in  this  country  which  de 
served  the  name,  and  while  it  is  still  a  magazine  and 

103 


io4  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

preserves  the  title,  it  has  become  only  a  repository  for 
articles  too  serious  for  use  in  the  much  be-pictured 
and  advertisement-crowded  "monthlies"  which  serve 
to  amuse  the  idler  and  find  their  principal  marts  in  the 
news-stands  of  the  street,  the  hotel  and  the  railway  sta 
tion.  Yet  in  the  earlier  half  of  the  last  century  the 
British  Reviews  were  the  chief  means  by  which  the 
leaders  of  thought  essayed  to  reach  the  minds  of  men 
and  to  give  them  instruction  in  politics  as  well  as  in 
literature. 

Before  the  founding  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  in 
1802,  the  magazines  which  pretended  to  do  the  work 
or  reviewing  were  but  poor  things,  as  dull  as  the  dull 
est  of  periodicals  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  those 
were  very  dull  indeed.  There  was  the  Monthly  Re 
view,  established  in  1749,  conducted  by  Ralph  Grif 
fiths,  "who  starved  and  bullied  Goldsmith,"  and  later 
by  his  son,  which  lasted  until  1845  and  was  in  its  earli 
est  years  perhaps  the  best  of  the  lot.  Jeffrey  wrote 
for  it  occasionally.  In  June,  July,  and  November, 
1802,  he  published  in  the  Monthly  articles  on 
White's  Etymoligon  and  Southey's  Thalaba.  There 
were  also  the  Critical  Review,  begun  in  1756,  the 
Gentleman's  Magazine  (1731),  the  London  Maga 
zine  (1732),  and  Scot's  Magazine  (1739).  But  the 
Monthly  remarked  that  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield  had 
"defects  enough  to  put  the  reader  out  of  patience  with 
an  author  capable  of  so  strangely  underwriting  him 
self,"  and  as  late  as  1798  pronounced  The  Rime  of 
the  Ancient  Mariner  to  be  "the  strangest  story  of 
cock  and  bull  that  we  ever  saw  on  paper,"  while  the 
Gentleman's  Magazine  sagely  commented  upon 
Gray's  immortal  poem  in  manner  following:  "Elegy 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  105 

wrote  in  a  country  church-yard,  4to.  Dodsley,  6d. : 
seven  pages.  The  excellency  of  this  little  piece  more 
than  compensates  for  its  lack  of  quantity."  The  Bent- 
ley  edition,  two  years  later,  called  forth  a  luminous 
comment  about  the  "head  and  tail  pieces  with  which 
each  poem  is  adorned,  which  are  of  uncommon  ex 
cellence,  the  Melancholy  in  particular  being  exquisite." 
In  all  of  them  there  was  scarcely  any  literary  criticism. 
The  articles  were  furnished  chiefly  by  dreary  drudges, 
hack-writers  dominated  by  the  booksellers,  receiving 
absurdly  scanty  pay.  It  is  true,  however,  that  the 
books  they  reviewed  were  scarcely  less  dreary  than 
the  reviews  themselves. 

In  their  History  of  English  Literature  Garnett  and 
Gosse  say,  with  some  justice : 

"Readers  of  the  early  numbers  of  the  Edinburgh 
and  the  Quarterly  will  to-day  be  surprised  at  the  emo 
tion  they  caused  and  the  power  they  wielded.  They 
are  often  smart,  sometimes  witty,  rarely  sound,  and 
the  style  is,  as  a  rule,  pompous  and  diffuse.  The  mod 
ern  reader  is  irritated  by  the  haughty  assumption  of 
these  boyish  reviewers,  who  treat  genius  as  a  prisoner 
at  the  bar,  and  as  in  all  probability  a  guilty  prisoner. 
This  unjust  judging  of  literature,  and  par 
ticularly  of  poetry— what  is  called  the  'slashing'  style 
of  criticism— when  it  is  now  revived,  is  usually  still 
prosecuted  on  the  lines  laid  down  by  Jeffrey  and  Gif- 
ford.  It  gives  satisfaction  to  the  reviewer,  pain  to  the 
author,  and  a  faint  amusement  to  the  public.  It  has 
no  effect  whatever  on  the  ultimate  position  of  the 
book  reviewed,  but,  exercised  on  occasion,  it  is  doubt 
less  a  useful  counter-irritant  to  thoughtless  or  venal 
eulogy." 

As  far  as  the  pompous  style  is  concerned,  it  was  not 
peculiar  to  the  Reviews  of  the  time:  it  pervaded  all 


io6  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

prose  literature;  and  when  we  consider  the  enormous 
output  of  books  we  are  now  familiar  with,  we  may 
regret  that  their  power  of  correction  has  substantially 
disappeared. 

The  refinement  of  style  for  which  certain  of  these 
magazines  were  distinguished  is  indicated  by  some  of 
the  remarks  made  by  one  about  the  other.  The  Month 
ly  said  that  the  staff  of  the  Critical  was  composed  of 
"physicians  without  practice,  authors  without  learning, 
men  without  decency,  and  critics  without  judgment." 
Smollett  in  the  Critical  declared  that  his  Review 
at  least  was  not  conducted  by  "a  parcel  of  obscene 
hirelings  under  the  restraint  of  a  bookseller  and  his 
wife,  who  presume  to  revise,  alter  and  amend  the  ar 
ticles."  Mrs.  Griffiths,  who  had  literary  tastes,  was 
reviled  as  "an  antiquated  Sappho,  or  rather  a  Pope 
Joan  in  taste  and  literature,  pregnant  with  abuse,  begot 
by  rancour,  under  the  canopy  of  ignorance." 

The  story  of  the  inception  of  the  Edinburgh  in  that 
little  room  in  the  house  on  Buccleuch  Place  has  been 
told  so  often  and  by  so  many  that  it  has  become  a  fa 
miliar  tale.  There  had  been  an  Edinburgh  Review  in 
1756,  but  it  had  expired  after  a  twelvemonth  life,  des 
tined  to  be  revived  under  brilliant  auspices — brilliant  at 
least  in  the  matter  of  brains,  for  the  youthful  galaxy 
composed  of  Jeffrey,  Sydney  Smith,  Brougham,  and 
Horner  well  deserved  to  be  called  "brilliant."  Smith's 
account  of  the  matter  was  disputed  by  Brougham  long 
years  afterwards,  but  its  correctness  in  the  main  has  been 
established.  The  old-age  reminiscences  of  the  Chan 
cellor  were  not  conspicuous  for  accuracy  and  his  over 
weening  sense  of  self-importance  led  him  to  exaggera 
tions  where  his  own  actions  were  involved.  Sydney 
Smith  was  the  editor  of  the  first  number,  if  it  may  be 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  107 

said  to  have  had  a  single  editor,  but  thereafter  Jeffrey 
assumed  full  charge.  Brougham's  own  copy  of  that 
first  number,  with  his  autograph  on  the  fly  leaf,  dated 
"1802,"  lies  before  me.  It  has  the  initials  of  the  auth 
ors  marked  in  the  index  against  the  titles  of  their  con 
tributions.  The  two  hundred  and  fifty-two  pages  of 
close  print  make  up  a  large  book,  and  I  am  sorry  to 
say,  rather  a  dull  one.  It  is  not  easy  to  understand  now 
why  it  could  have  aroused  much  interest.  But  on  reflec 
tion,  one  may  comprehend  that  it  was  such  an  advance 
on  its  predecessors  that  it  commanded  instant  apprecia 
tion.  According  to  Brougham's  notes,  Jeffrey  had  five 
articles,  filling  sixty-seven  pages;  Brougham,  four,  of 
forty-six  pages;  Hamilton  four,  of  thirty-seven  pages; 
and  Horner,  Smith,  Macfarlan,  Dr.  John  Thomson, 
Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  and  Murray  follow  with  a  lesser 
amount.  The  volume  has  an  especial  interest,  for,  as 
Mr.  J.  Rogers  Rees  remarks  in  a  pencil  note,  "this  at 
tribution  in  the  founder's  autograph  sets  the  question  of 
the  several  contributors  finally  at  rest."  The  inaccuracy 
of  the  story  of  the  establishment  of  the  Review  which 
Brougham  gives  in  his  Memoirs,  is  indicated  by  the 
fact  that  while  he  asserts  that  he  himself  wrote  in  the 
first  number  the  reviews  of  "Oliver's  Travels,"  "Bald 
win's  Egypt"  (jointly  with  Jeffrey)  and  "Playfair's  Il 
lustrations  of  the  Huttonian  Theory,"  yet  in  his  per 
sonal  copy  of  that  number  he  has,  in  his  own  handwrit 
ing,  asserted  that  the  first  two  were  by  Hamilton  and 
the  third  by  John  Macfarlan.  But  he  does  justice  to 
Jeffrey,  of  whom  he  says : 

"Jeffrey's  labors  as  an  editor  were  unceasing,  and 
I  will  venture  to  say,  if  we  had  searched  all  Europe,  a 
better  man  in  every  respect  could  not  have  been  found. 
As  a  critic  he  was  unequalled;  and,  take  them  as  a 


io8  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

whole,  I  consider  his  articles  were  the  best  we  had.  As 
an  instance  of  the  care  he  took  in  revising  and  prepar 
ing  contributions,  I  remember  an  article  on  the  Me 
moirs  of  Prince  Eugene  was  sent  to  Jeffrey  by  Mill. 
Jeffrey  gave  it  to  Dr.  Ferrier,  of  Manchester,  to  re 
vise;  and  when  he  got  it  back  from  Dr.  Ferrier,  he 
himself  corrected  it,  and  added  the  moral  reflections 
and  the  concluding  observations  on  the  new  Paris  edi 
tion  of  the  work." 

Perhaps,  in  preference  to  the  various  accounts  by 
Sydney  Smith,  Brougham,  and  others,  one  may  trust 
most  in  Jeffrey's  own  story  as  related  by  him  in  a  let 
ter  written  in  1846  to  Robert  Chambers.  Jeffrey  says: 

"I  cannot  say  exactly  where  the  project  of  the  Edin 
burgh  Review  wast  first  talked  of  among  the  projec 
tors.  But  the  first  serious  conversations  about  it— and 
which  led  to  our  application  to  a  publisher — were  held 
in  a  small  house,  where  I  then  lived,  in  Buccleuch  Place 
(I  forget  the  number).  They  were  attended  by  S. 
Smith,  F.  Horner,  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  Lord  Mur 
ray  (John  Archibald  Murray,  a  Scottish  advocate,  and 
now  one  of  the  Scottish  judges),  and  some  of  them 
also  by  Lord  Webb  Seymour,  Dr.  John  Thomson,  and 
Thomas  Thomson.  The  first  three  numbers  were 
given  to  the  publisher — he  taking  the  risk  and  defray 
ing  the  charges.  There  was  then  no  individual  edi 
tor,  but  as  many  of  us  as  could  be  got  to  attend  used 
to  meet  in  a  dingy  room  of  Willison's  printing-office, 
in  Craig's  Close,  where  the  proofs  of  our  own  articles 
were  read  over  and  remarked  upon  and  attempts  made 
also  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  few  manuscripts  which 
were  then  offered  by  strangers.  *  *  Smith 

was  by  far  the  most  timid  of  the  confederacy  and  be 
lieved  that,  if  our  incognito  was  not  strictly  main 
tained,  we  could  not  go  on  a  day,  and  this  was  his  ob 
ject  for  making  us  hold  our  dark  divans  at  Willison's 
office,  to  which  he  insisted  on  our  repairing  singly,  and 
by  back-approaches  or  different  lanes.  He  had  also 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  109 

so  strong  an  impression  of  Brougham's  indiscretion 
and  rashness,  that  he  would  not  let  him  be  a  member 
of  our  association,  though  wished  for  by  all  the  rest. 
He  was  admitted,  however,  after  the  third  number, 
and  did  more  work  for  us  than  anybody.  Brown  took 
offence  at  some  alterations  I  had  made  in  a  trifling 
article  of  his  in  the  second  number,  and  left  us  thus 
early:  publishing  at  the  same  time  in  a  magazine  the 
fact  of  his  secession — a  step  which  we  all  deeply  re 
gretted,  and  thought  scarcely  justified  by  the  provoca 
tion.  Nothing  of  the  kind  occurred  ever  after." 

It  is  amusing  to  compare  this  sober  and  undoubtedly 
accurate  story  with  Sydney  Smith's,  and  with  Broug 
ham's  bumptious  narrative,— accusing  Jeffrey  of  timid 
ity—from  which  one  would  suppose  that  Brougham  was 
the  mainstay  of  the  enterprise  and  the  others  were 
satellites,  content  to  follow  his  lead. 

Jeffrey  continued  to  occupy  the  chair  until  1829,  and 
under  his  management  the  circulation  of  the  Review 
increased  from  seven  hundred  and  eighty-nine  to  nearly 
thirteen  thousand  copies.  Sir  Walter  Scott  ascribed  its 
success  mainly  to  two  circumstances, — that  it  was  en 
tirely  uninfluenced  by  the  booksellers  and  that  the  editor 
and  contributors  were  regularly  paid.  The  editor  re 
ceived  at  first  £300  a  year,  afterwards  £800  a  year; 
and  every  contributor,  rich  or  poor,  was  compelled  to 
accept  a  minimum  sum  of  £10  a  sheet,  afterwards  in 
creased  to  £16.  Griffiths  paid  two  guineas  a  sheet  of 
sixteen  pages,  and  his  writers  earned  their  money  by 
giving  about  eight  pages  of  quotation  to  one  page  of 
criticism ;  so  that  the  Edinburgh  was  not  especially  gen 
erous,  at  first.  Sir  Walter's  reasons  may  have  been 
good,  but  perhaps  the  style  and  the  merit  of  the  con 
tents  and  the  growing  demand  of  readers  for  the  best 


no  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

work  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the  prosperity  of  the 
periodical. 

The  young  man  of  twenty-nine  who  thus  entered 
upon  his  career  as  a  famous  critic  and  a  great  editor, 
was  the  eldest  son  of  George  Jeffrey,  a  Depute  Clerk 
of  the  Court  of  Session,  and  Henrietta  Louden,  his 
wife.  His  mother  was  a  daughter  of  John  Louden, 
a  farmer  living  near  Lanark.  There  were  four  other 
children  of  this  marriage:  Margaret,  who  died 
young;  Mary,  who  married  George  Napier,  a  writer 
to  the  signet,  on  April  21,  1797;  John,  who  went  to 
Boston,  Massachusetts,  engaged  in  business  as  a  mer 
chant  with  his  father's  brother,  and  married  a  sister 
of  John  Wilkes;  and  Marion,  who  married  in  June, 
1806,  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  a  physician  in  Glasgow, 
and  who  died  in  1846.  Francis  was  born  in  St. 
Charles  Street,  St.  George's  Square,  Edinburgh,  on 
October  23,  1773.  His  father  is  described  as  ua  high 
Tory,"  "sensible  and  respectable,  but  of  a  gloomy 
temper."  The  mother,  greatly  beloved  "the  more  so 
from  the  contrast  between  her  and  her  husband,"  died 
when  Francis  was  only  thirteen  years  old.  The  boy 
learned  dancing  before  he  was  nine,  loved  study 
better  than  play,  and  was  never  good  at  any  bodily 
exercise  except  walking.  He  entered  the  High  School 
at  Edinburgh  in  October,  1781,  remaining  there  until 
1787.  Mr.  Fraser,  of  the  School,  who  was  the  in 
structor  of  both  Scott  and  Brougham,  and  who  was 
Jeffrey's  preceptor  for  four  years,— until  the  youth 
passed  under  the  sway  of  Alexander  Adam,  the  rector, 
—  remembered  him  as  a  "little,  clever,  anxious  boy,  al 
ways  near  the  top  of  his  class,  and  who  never  lost  a 
place  without  shedding  tears."  He  was  at  Glasgow 
College  during  the  next  two  years,  his  brightness  be- 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  in 

coming  manifest,  but  his  father  would  not  permit  him 
to  attend  the  lectures  of  Professor  Millar,  a  Whig. 
He  occupied  himself  much  in  the  work  of  composition, 
and  even  proposed  to  Adam  to  conduct  a  philosophi 
cal  correspondence.  Returning  to  Edinburgh  in  1789, 
he  attended  the  law  lectures  of  Hume  and  Dick,  and 
was  fortunate  enough  to  be  able  to  avail  of  the  privi 
leges  of  the  excellent  library  of  his  uncle,  William 
Morehead,  who  lived  at  Herbertshire,  Stirling.  In 
September,  1791,  he  entered  Queen's  College,  Ox 
ford,  where  he  remained,  greatly  discontented,  until 
July,  1792.  In  the  dreary  and  disappointing  bio- 
grapy  which  Lord  Cockburn  published  in  1852,  there 
are  a  number  of  quotations  from  his  letters  to  mem 
bers  of  his  family  betraying  his  dissatisfaction  with 
the  conditions  then  prevailing  in  Oxford.  An  unpub 
lished  letter  to  his  sister  Mary,  written  in  April,  1792, 
is  in  my  possession.  It  is  pleasantly  chatty  and  play 
ful,  foreshadowing  the  diffuseness  and  discursiveness 
of  his  later  style,  and  the  handwriting  is  abominable. 
uOh,  ma  soeur"  he  begins,  referring  to  a  portrait 
which  she  had  given  him,  "how  much  I  am  obliged  to 
you— and  the  readiness  of  your  compliance  has  doubled 
its  value,  and  the  elegance  of  the  execution  has  multi 
plied  it  seven  fold.  It  has  restored  the  image  to  my 
soul  and  given  a  foundation  of  accuracy  and  reality 
to  the  lawless  embellishments  of  fancy."  He  criti 
cises  the  portrait  in  a  manner  which  reminds  us  of  his 
later  reviews,  and  then  wanders  to  the  subject  of 
woman.  He  expresses  doubts  about  the  truth  of  a 
report  concerning  one  of  his  sister's  friends.  "I  have 
many  admirable  reasons,"  he  says,  "for  my  disbelief 
—  among  the  rest,  first,  because  so  many  of  the  same 
family  have  imposed  upon  the  world  of  late  that  it 


ii2  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

would  be  absurd  to  depend  upon  the  veracity  of  this, 
and  secondly  because  I  am  very  unwilling  to  suppose 
that  it  should  be  so  tho'  how  and  why  I  am  unwilling 
it  may  not  be  so  easy  to  explain.  I  don't  know  that  I 
ever  was  exactly  what  can  be  called  in  love  with  this 
fair  coquette,  and  am  certain  there  never  was  anything 
serious  in  my  attachment  to  her,  for  her  idea  was  so 
closely  associated  with  images  of  laughter  and  vivac 
ity  that  I  could  never  conjure  up  her  beauties  but  they 
appeared  gilded  with  smiles  and  banished  all  the  lan- 
guishments  of  meditating  and  melting  affection  which 
I  take  to  be  the  only  basis  and  indication  of  love — but 
this  is  letting  you  into  the  very  mysteries  of  the  science, 
—but  perpend— at  the  same  time  her  idea  is  entire 
in  my  fancy — her  image  is  enshrined  in  my  heart,  and 
I  shall  be  horribly  tempted  to  wish  that  this  (illegible) 
may  dance  off  in  an  apoplexy  the  night  preceding  his 
espousals  if  I  hear  anything  more  about  him;  how 
ever,  I  did  not  dedicate  one  tear  to  the  probability.5' 
After  this  sage  dissertation  on  love  from  a  lad  of 
nineteen,  he  proceeds  to  more  serious  subjects.  "I  be 
gin  to  find  that  the  company  with  which  I  am  most 
probably  destined  to  labor  along  the  journey  of  life  is 
not  accommodated  to  my  taste  and  disposition.  It 
seems  to  be  composed  of  men  of  moderate  futures 
and  moderate  wishes  and  abilities  and  passions,  and 
virtues  and  vices.  Men  who  do  not  think  it  hard  to 
toil  and  bustle  like  Mr.  Paterson  in  his  printing  gar 
ret  all  day  so  they  can  have  a  comfortable  supper  and 
a  tiff  of  punch  after  it  at  night;  men  who  talk  very 
sagely  of  the  comforts  of  such  a  supper,  who  are  easily 
induced  to  forgive  any  fraud  to  which  a  brother  has 
been  tempted,  in  the  hope  of  it;  men  in  whom  busi 
ness  has  extinguished  sensation  and  whose  wishes  are 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  113 

bounded  with  the  certainty  of  living  respectably  and 
comfortably  among  their  neighbors.  Now  this  sort 
of  life  and  this  sort  of  character  is  exactly  what  I  de 
test  and  avoid.  If  it  were  not  given  to  me  to  ascend 
the  towering  steep  of  glory  I  should  wish  to  descend 
into  the  low  and  the  verdant  vale  of  obscurity  and 
peace— there  to  seek  enjoyment  from  the  practice  of 
benevolence,  from  the  sublimities  of  meditation,  the 
gratification  of  taste,  and  the  sweet  simplicity  of  inter 
course  which  softens  the  ruggedness  of  retirement. 
But  in  this  heedless  society  of  indifference  and  imper 
tinence  where  a  man  never  sees  the  heart  of  his  com 
panion,  where  his  time  is  occupied  in  laboring  out 
some  superfluous  luxury  to  be  sparkled  in  the  eyes  of 
those  from  whose  gratification  he  can  have  no  pleas 
ure,  where  no  reward  or  recompence  is  offered  to  his 
hopes  for  the  continued  torture  of  a  silly  and  turbu 
lent  crowd.  In  this  meddling,  busy  region  of  exist 
ence  I  question  if  it  be  possible  for  happiness  to  find 
footing,  and  if  we  hear  few  complaints  of  the  misery 
of  its  inhabitants,  it  is  only  because  their  sensations 
have  been  so  totally  destroyed  that  they  have  no  no 
tion  or  idea  of  the  good  they  never  knew.  I  am  de 
termined  to  make  an  exertion  to  get  out  of  this  crowd. 
Cara,  I  have  sent  you  quite  a  declamation, 
but  such  are  the  subjects  which  occupy  me  at  present, 
and  there  is  not  a  single  soul  here  to  whom  they  would 
be  intelligible.  The  insipid  and  vulgarly  social  char 
acter  is  more  universal  than  I  had  believed.  I  have 
found  it  conjoined  with  learning  and  mathematics, 
and  pride,  and  even  with  taste  and  sane  feeling."  All 
of  this  is  quite  characteristic  of  a  lively  boy  with  a 
vocabulary  too  overflowing  to  be  completely  under 
control,  and  it  is  amusing  to  find  him  at  the  close, 


ii4  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

straying  back  from  the  "regions  of  existence"  to  the 
young  woman  about  whose  prospective  nuptials  he 
was  so  much  disturbed.  "I  lay  my  commands  upon 
you  to  write  me  a  long  letter  about  this  fair  girl.  If 
she  is  within  hearing,  tell  her  as  much  of  my  senti 
ments  of  her  as  you  think  consistent  with  my  polite 
ness."  It  all  shows  that  college  lads  remain  about  the 
same  from  generation  to  generation.  We  may  not 
find  so  much  fertility  of  phrase  in  the  letters  of  the 
boys  of  Harvard,  Princeton,  and  Yale,  to  their  loving 
sisters;  but  it  is  generally  the  life  one  is  to  lead,  the 
unsympathetic  surroundings,  and  the  eternal  feminine. 
Although  disappointed  with  Oxford,  he  studied 
diligently  and  wrote  persistently,  one  of  his  papers 
being  an  essay  on  "Beauty,"  which  was  "the  germ  of 
his  treatise  on  that  subject  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britan- 
nica"  One  thing  he  strove  for,  which  seems  to  us 
scarcely  worth  while :  he  tried  to  lose  his  Scotch  dialect 
and  accent,  but  did  not  entirely  succeed.  Lord  Cock- 
burn  says  that  he  was  "by  no  means  so  successful  in 
acquiring  an  English  voice.  *  *  *  What  he  picked 
up  was  a  high-keyed  accent  and  a  sharp  pronuncia 
tion;"  and  the  solemn  biographer  adds  that  "the  acqui 
sition  of  a  pure  English  accent  by  a  full  grown  Scotch 
man  is  fortunately  impossible."  He  resumed  his  at 
tendance  on  law  lectures  in  Edinburgh,  and  was  admit 
ted  to  practice  on  December  16,  1794.  He  had  so 
busied  himself  in  writing  and  speaking,  and  in  the  de 
bates  of  the  famous  Speculative  Society,  which  he  joined 
in  1792  and  where  he  encountered  Scott,  Brougham, 
Petty,  Horner,  and  Henry  Cockburn,  that  he  had  little 
or  no  time  to  build  up  a  business,  and  in  1801  he  told 
his  brother  that  his  profession  had  never  yet  brought 
him  £100  a  year.  While  at  Oxford  he  had  fancied 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  115 

that  he  might  become  famous  as  a  poet;  he  wrote  to 
his  sister  that  he  should  "never  be  a  great  man,  unless 
it  be  as  a  poet."  So  besides  his  essays,  he  wrote  much 
verse;  contemplated,  in  1796,  a  translation  in  the  style 
of  Cowper's  Homer,  from  the  Argonautics  of  Apol- 
lonius;  and  composed  two  plays,  never  given  to  the 
world.  Cockburn  tells  us  that  he  once  left  a  manu 
script  poem  with  a  publisher,  but  after  reflection,  suc 
ceeded  in  rescuing  it  before  it  was  considered. 

II. 

i 

The  young  lawyer  in  search  of  a  practice  should  be 
an  object  of  commiseration.  It  is  all  so  much  a  mat 
ter  of  chance  that  he  is  apt  to  be  sadly  discouraged  at 
the  outset  in  his  quest  of  clients.  Brains  count,  it  is 
true,  but  brains  must  come  into  contact  with  opportu 
nity  to  achieve  success,  and  the  time  when  the  conjunc 
tion  is  to  occur,  if  it  is  to  occur  at  all,  seems  often 
remote  and  the  waiting  is  tedious  and  exasperating.  It 
may  never  come,  and  the  failure  leaves  the  victim  in 
depression  and  penury.  In  any  event,  the  aspirant 
experiences  a  long  discouragement,  and  is  again  and 
again  on  the  point  of  abandoning  his  profession.  Jeff 
rey  was  no  exception  to  the  rule.  He  was  a  Whig,  and 
in  1793  had  written  an  essay  on  "Politicks"  giving  ex 
pression  to  views  which  sorely  displeased  his  Tory 
father,  but  he  was  encouraged  by  his  uncle  Morehead 
who^was  inclined  to  liberalism.  In  that  day  Scotland 
was  ruled  by  the  Tories  under  Henry  Dundas  and  later 
under  Melville,  and  there  was  little  chance  for  Jeffrey, 
although  he  had  a  small  business  by  reason  of  some 
family  connections.  He  betook  himself  to  London  in 
1798,  taking  letters  to  editors,  including  Perry  of  the 


n6  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

"Morning  Chronicle,"  with  the  notion  that  he  could 
do  far  better  in  literature  than  in  law,  but  it  came  to 
nothing  and  back  he  went  to  study  science,  especially 
chemistry.  He  joined  a  society,  the  "Academy  of 
Physicks,"  in  company  with  Brown,  Brougham  and 
Horner,  and  had  serious  thoughts  of  trying  his  fortune 
in  India.  His  friends  suggested  that  he  should  aspire 
to  fill  the  chair  of  history  in  the  University  of  Edin 
burgh,  which  A.  F.  Tytler  had  just  resigned,  but  his 
political  principles  stood  in  his  way.  In  1801  he  was 
a  candidate  for  a  reportership  in  the  Court  of  Sessions, 
but  was  defeated.  So,  having  no  prospects  to  speak 
of  and  barely  twenty  guineas  to  his  name,  he  prudently 
married  his  second  cousin,  Catherine  Wilson,  on  No 
vember  i,  1 80 1,  and  went  to  live  in  that  "flat"  on 
Buccleuch  Place,  which  was  to  attain  immortality  as 
the  birthplace  of  the  Edinburgh.  Sydney  Smith  speaks 
of  it  as  being  in  the  "eighth  or  ninth  story,"  but  it  was 
really  in  the  third;  and  there  he  dwelt  until  May,  1802, 
when  he  removed  to  the  upper  story  of  No.  62  Queen 
Street.  It  is  recorded  that  it  cost  him  £7-18  to  furnish 
his  study,  £13-8  for  his  dining  room,  and  £22-19  f°r 
his  drawing  room.  Almost  ready  to  look  for  employ 
ment  in  other  fields,  he  found  his  opportunity  in  the 
Review. 

In  the  first  four  numbers  of  the  Edinburgh,  Jeffrey 
had  sixteen  articles  and  Sydney  Smith  eighteen;  in 
the  first  twenty-four  numbers  he  had  seventy-five,  Smith 
twenty-three,  and  Brougham  eighty.  In  the  first  num 
ber,  that  of  October,  1802,  he  reviewed  Southey's 
Thalaba,  and  to  a  reader  of  to-day  his  conclusions  ap 
pear  to  be  well-founded.  His  judgment  was  severe  but 
not  savagely  fierce.  He  says  with  justice  that  "all  the 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  117 

productions  of  this  author,  it  appears  to  us,  bear  very 
distinctly  the  impression  of  an  amiable  mind,  a  culti 
vated  fancy,  and  a  perverted  taste."  But  the  review 
is  important  chiefly  from  the  evidence  it  affords  of  the 
writer's  hostility  to  the  rising  school  of  poetry,  that 
of  Wordsworth  and  his  friends— a  hostility  which  sur 
vived  even  the  ultimate  victory  of  the  new  school  over 
the  old  and  classical  formality  of  its  predecessors.  The 
spirit  in  which  he  approached  the  subject  is  indicated 
by  the  opening  sentence:  "Poetry  has  this  much,  at 
least,  in  common  with  religion,  that  its  standards  were 
fixed  long  ago  by  certain  inspired  writers  whose  author 
ity  it  is  no  longer  lawful  to  call  in  question."  This 
positive  assertion  of  his  proposition  is  an  example  of 
what  has  been  assailed  as  the  dictatorial,  ex  cathedra 
method  which  prevailed  in  the  Edinburgh  for  years  and 
which  reached  perhaps  its  ultimate  development  in  the 
brilliant,  often  unfair,  but  always  fascinating  essays 
of  Macaulay. 

A  vast  amount  of  nonsense  has  been  uttered  con 
cerning  Jeffrey's  arbitrary  manner  and  his  errors  with 
regard  to  the  works  of  the  new  poets.  One  of  the  most 
common  texts  for  the  sermons  of  those  discerning  critics 
who  are  so  extremely  wise  after  the  fact,  is  the  famous 
"This  will  never  do,"  with  which  he  opened  his  review 
of  The  Excursion.  "But  has  it  ever  done?"  asks  Pro 
fessor  Minto;  "I  have  never  heard  of  or  seen  anybody 
prepared  to  say  that  {The  Excursion  can  be  read  with 
unflagging  delight.  *  *  *  The  truth  is  that  most 
of  his  [Jeffrey's]  criticism  has  been  amply  confirmed 
and  justified."  A  pretentious  and  "cock-sure"  writer  in 
a  modern  "History  of  English  Literature"  so-called, 
affords  an  illustration  of  the  very  quality  of  autocratic 
judgment  which  he  ascribes  to  Jeffrey,  when  he  says:  — 


n8  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

"The  ministerial  pronouncements  of  its  arch-critic, 
Jeffrey,  are  such  as  now  can  only  amaze.  Amid  the 
great  constellation  of  poets  who  had  come  within 
his  knowledge  as  a  critic — Byron,  Moore,  Words 
worth,  Coleridge,  Crabbe,  Shelley,  Keats,  Tennyson 
— he  discovered  permanent  qualities  in  two  only,  Ro 
gers  and  Campbell.  He  describes  Wilhelm  Meister 
without  circumlocution  as  'so  much  trash'.  In  fact  he 
represents  orthodox  opinion  of  the  day  in  stylish  cir 
cles,  elevated  only  to  the  extent  of  being  expressed 
with  exceptional  point." 

This  writer  sees  fit  to  leave  wholly  out  of  view  Burns 
and  Scott  and  the  laudatory  reviews  of  the  Reliques 
of  Robert  Burns  in  January,  1809,  and  of  The  Lady 
of  the  Lake  in  August,  1810.  Tennyson's  "Poems, 
Chiefly  Lyrical"  did  not  appear  until  a  year  after  Jeff 
rey  resigned  the  editorial  chair.  As  to  Keats,  he  over 
looks  the  appreciative  review  of  Endymion,  which  ap 
peared  in  the  Edinburgh  in  1820,  long  after  the  publi 
cation  of  the  cruel  and  excoriating  criticism  which  dis 
figured  the  pages  of  the  Quarterly  in  April,  1818. 

In  a  note  to  the  review  of  Endymion,  which  I  cite 
from  the  volumes  of  collected  papers  (ii,  373;  Edition 
of  1846),  Jeffrey  says: 

"I  still  think  that  a  poet  of  great  power  and  prom 
ise  was  lost  to  us  by  the  premature  death  of  Keats 
*  *  *  and  regret  that  I  did  not  go  more  largely 
into  the  exposition  of  his  merits,  in  the  slight  notice 
of  them  which  I  now  venture  to  reprint.  But  though 
I  cannot,  with  propriety,  or  without  departing  from 
the  principle  which  must  govern  this  republication, 
now  supply  the  omission,  I  hope  to  be  forgiven  for 
having  added  a  page  or  two  to  the  citations— by  which 
my  opinion  of  those  merits  was  then  illustrated  and  is 
again  left  to  the  judgment  of  the  reader." 

As  far  as  Wilhelm  Meister  is  concerned,  I  am  not 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  119 

sure  that  he  was  wrong.  It  seems  to  be  an  unwarranted 
assertion  that  Jeffrey  merely  represented  "the  ortho 
dox  opinion  of  the  day  in  stylish  circles" — a  causeless 
sneer  at  a  supposed  deference  to  the  views  of  "stylish 
circles,"  which  somewhat  vulgar  phrase  is  evidently 
used  to  designate  the  aristocracy  of  culture  and  of  so 
cial  position.  It  is  needless  to  devise  such  a  puerile 
theory.  Jeffrey  was  a  trained  and  accomplished  law 
yer;  and  like  most  lawyers  of  his  type,  he  was  disposed 
to  find  everywhere  a  law,  a  rule,  whether  of  civil  con 
duct  prescribed  by  the  supreme  power  of  a  state,  or  of 
good  taste  prescribed  by  those  whose  decisions,  re 
spected  and  followed  in  the  past,  had  come  to  possess 
in  their  own  realm  the  binding  force  of  law.  Men  of 
his  profession  are  almost  always  conservative,  often  to 
excess,  over-reluctant  to  countenance  changes  which 
may  be  advantageous  and  which 'moreover  are  inevita 
ble;  for  all  laws  must  change  with  the  spirit  and  the 
temper  of  the  times. 

In  fact,  however,  this  sapient  scribbler  borrowed 
his  judgment  from  Sir  Leslie  Stephen's  charming  es 
say,  "The  First  Edinburgh  Reviewers,"*  which  is  full 
of  that  delightful  and  easy  book-discussion  so  fascin 
ating  to  a  reader  who  enjoys  literary  criticism.  Ste 
phen  was,  in  that  essay,  a  little,  if  ever  so  little,  severe 
with  Jeffrey,  and  his  article  on  Jeffrey  in  the  National 
Dictionary  of  Biography  is  much  more  favorable  in 
its  tone.  Stephen  says  of  him  in  the  essay:  "Every  critic 
has  a  sacred  and  inalienable  right  to  blunder  at  times; 
but  Jeffrey's  blundering  is  amazingly  systematic  and 
comprehensive."  He  illustrates  this  by  a  quotation 
from  the  last  of  Jeffrey's  poetical  critiques  (October, 


*Hours  in  a  Library,  ii,  241  (1894). 


120  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

1829)  where  the  reviewer,  he  says,  sums  up  his  criti 
cal  experience.  "He  doubts  whether  Mrs.  Hemans, 
whom  he  is  reviewing  at  the  time,  will  be  immortal. 
'The  tuneful  quartos  of  Southey,'  he  says,  'are  al 
ready  little  better  than  lumber,'  and  the  rich  melodies 
of  Keats  and  Shelley,  and  the  fantastical  emphasis  of 
Wordsworth,  and  the  plebeian  pathos  of  Crabbe,  are 
melting  fast  from  the  field  of  vision.  The  novels  of 
Scott  have  put  out  his  poetry.  Even  the  splendid 
strains  of  Moore  are  fading  into  distance  and  dim 
ness,  except  when  they  have  been  married  to  immor 
tal  music;  and  the  blazing  star  of  Byron  himself  is 
receding  from  its  place  of  pride."  This  does  not  im 
press  one  as  a  monument  of  error.  Surely  every  word 
of  it  is  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  in  1829,  except  that 
there  has  been  a  recrudescence  of  "the  rich  melodies 
of  Keats  and  Shelley,"  and  of  Byron,  whose  star  was 
assuredly  almost  obscured  for  many  years,  although 
of  late  it  seems  to  be  again  shining  with  a  good  deal 
of  its  former  lustre.  The  gravamen  of  the  charge 
of  blundering  which  is  preferred  against  Jeffrey  is,  to 
use  the  words  of  Sir  Leslie  Stephen,  his  assertion 
that  "the  two  who  show  least  marks  of  decay  are — of 
all  people  in  the  world— Rogers  and  Campbell!" 
Let  us  reason  together  a  little  about  this  censure. 

Every  lawyer  knows  that  in  dealing  with  what  a 
man  says,  it  is  important  to  know  exactly  what  he  said. 
What  was  it  that  Jeffrey  said  about  Rogers  and 
Campbell  which  has  brought  down  upon  him  the  ava 
lanche  of  blame  showered  by  Stephen  and  Scrib 
bler?  Dr.  Winchester  says  that  it  has  been  "quoted 
by  everybody  who  has  written  anything  on  Jeffrey 
since  Christopher  North  quoted  it  first  in  Blackwood." 
The  trouble  is  that  everybody  does  not  quote  it;  almost 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  121 

everybody  attempts  to  paraphrase  it  and  blunders  in  the 
attempt.     This  is  exactly  what  Jeffrey  wrote : — 

"The  two  who  have  the  longest  withstood  this  rapid 
withering  of  the  laurel,  and  with  the  least  mark  of 
decay  on  their  branches,  are  Rogers  and  Campbell; 
neither  of  them,  it  may  be  remarked,  voluminous  writ 
ers,  and  both  distinguished  rather  for  their  fine  taste 
and  consummate  elegance  of  their  writings,  than  for 
that  fiery  passion,  and  disdainful  vehemence  which 
seemed  for  a  time  to  be  so  much  more  in  favor  with  the 
public." 

It  may  be  permitted  to  say  that  in  1829  this  was 
all  quite  true;  no  one  has  denied  it.  It  is  very  far  from 
an  assertion  that  Rogers  and  Campbell  will  be  "the 
sole  enduring  relics  from  an  age  of  Wordsworth, 
Shelley,  Keats,  Coleridge,  and  Byron."  Jeffrey  says 
not  a  word  about  what  may  happen  in  the  future.  Sir 
Leslie  appears  to  have  had  a  slight  degree  of  com 
punction  about  his  conclusion,  because  he  attempts  to 
sustain  his  severity  by  the  remark  that  "this  summary 
was  republished  in  1843,  by  which  time  the  true  pro 
portions  of  the  great  reputations  of  the  period  were 
becoming  more  obvious  to  an  ordinary  observer." 
But  Jeffrey  was  not  writing  in  1843;  ne  was  simply 
repeating  what  he  wrote  in  1829.  Would  Sir  Leslie 
have  had  him  change  it?  His  principle  in  the  repro 
duction  is  referred  to  in  the  note  about  Keats,  hereto 
fore  quoted.  In  the  well-known  words  of  Jeffrey, 
"This  will  never  do."  It  must  be  remembered,  too, 
that  Rogers  was  a  dearly  beloved  friend,  and  critics 
are  human;  and  I  dare  to  say  that  there  are  even  now 
verses  of  Campbell  which  are  familiar  to  thousands 
who  do  not  know  a  line  of  Keats  or  of  Shelley.  More 
over,  if  the  modest  statement  of  his  views  was  a 


122  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

blunder,  we  must  remember  what  Sir  Leslie  well  says, 
"criticism  is  a  still  more  perishable  commodity  than 
poetry,"  and  if  you  censure  one  critic  for  an  occa 
sional  error,  you  will  have  to  condemn  them  all. 
Stephen  does  admit  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Jackson,  in 
1877,  that  "Jeffrey,  too,  said  a  true  thing  or  two 
about  Wordsworth."  But  was  Sir  Leslie,  after  all,  a 
very  competent  judge?  His  biographer,  Mr.  Maitland, 
in  Life  and  Letters  of  Leslie  Stephen  (1906)  says: 

"Stephen,  we  are  told,  after  his  death,  did  not 
really  care  for  poetry  any  more  than  Jeffrey,  and 
consequently  was  not  fully  qualified  to  criticise  it.  Of 
course  not;  he  was  a  philosopher." 

Hence  we  may  distrust  the  capacity  of  Stephen  to 
decide  about  Jeffrey's  views  of  poetry.  The  devoted 
admirers  of  Wordsworth  never  quite  forgave  Jeffrey 
for  what  he  said  about  their  idol.  Crabbe  Robinson 
records  in  his  Diary  a  talk  with  Empson,  in  which 
the  latter  relates  that  Jeffrey  had  lately  told  him  that 
so  many  people  had  thought  highly  of  Wordsworth, 
that  he  was  resolved  to  reperuse  his  poems  and  see  if 
he  had  anything  to  retract.  He  found  nothing  to  re 
tract  except,  perhaps,  a  contemptuous  and  flippant 
phrase  or  two.  Empson  believed  that  Jeffrey's  dis 
taste  for  Wordsworth  was  honest,— mere  uncongenial- 
ity  of  mind.  Jeffrey  did  acknowledge  that  he  was 
wrong  in  his  treatment  of  Lamb.  Robinson  notes,  in 
April,  1835,  ms  meeting  Jeffrey  at  dinner.  "Jeffrey," 
he  says,  "is  a  sharp  and  clever-looking  man,  and  in 
spite  of  my  dislike  to  his  name,  he  did  not  on  the 
whole  displease  me.  His  treatment  of  Wordsworth 
would  not  allow  me  to  like  him,  had  he  been  greater 
by  far  than  he  was.  And,  therefore,  when  he  said, 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  123 

'I  was  always  an  admirer  of  Wordsworth,'  I  could  not 
repress  the  unseemly  remark,  'You  had  a  singular 
way  of  showing  your  admiration'."* 

In  the  Thalaba  review,  Jeffrey  vigorously  attacks 
the  ''affectation  of  great  simplicity  and  familiarity  of 
language,"  which  was  characteristic  of  the  new  school 
of  poets;  "the  perverted  taste  for  simplicity"  he  calls 
it.  He  seems  to  have  been  fond  of  the  expression 
"perverted  taste."  He  is  moved  to  bitter  words  when 
he  refers  to  their  "splenetic  and  idle  discontent  with 
the  existing  institutions  of  society."  His  own  feel 
ings  were  so  far  "aristocratic"  that  he  was  unable  to 
believe  that  while  the  princely  and  the  wealthy  are  to 
be  strongly  condemned  for  acts  of  vice  and  profligacy, 
the  members  of  "the  lower  orders  of  society"  are  to 
be  excused  and  pitied  for  like  acts,  because  they  are 
"but  the  helpless  victims  or  instruments"  of  the  dis 
orders  attending  the  vicious  constitution  of  society. 
He  is  guilty  of  such  offensive  and  unpopular  sugges 
tions  as  that  "the  same  apology  ought  certainly  to  be 
admitted  for  the  wealthy,  as  for  the  needy  offender. 
They  are  subject  alike  to  the  overruling  influence  of 
necessity,  and  equally  affected  by  the  miserable  condi 
tion  of  society.  If  it  be  natural  for  a  poor  man  to 
murder  and  rob  in  order  to  make  himself  comfort 
able,  it  is  no  less  natural  for  a  rich  man  to  gorman 
dise  and  domineer,  in  order  to  have  the  full  use  of  his 
riches.  Wealth  is  just  as  valid  an  excuse  for  the  one 
class  of  vices  as  indigence  is  for  the  other."  Such 
sentiments,  if  uttered  in  these  times  of  ours,  would 
surely  subject  the  offender  to  the  scornful  rebukes  of 
our  modern  philosophers  of  the  press,  who  regard  it 


•Diary,  iii,  65. 


i24  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

as  criminal  to  be  rich— unless  the  fortune  was  ac 
quired  by  printing  newspapers,  or  was  inherited  by 
an  editor,  and  whose  denunciations  of  large  fortunes 
are  accompanied  by  abject  deference  to  the  possessors 
of  them  when  in  their  personal  presence. 

The  review  of  The  Reliques  of  Robert  Burns  (Janu 
ary,  1809)  is  a  fine  example  of  the  discriminating  power 
of  the  critic.  Scotchman  as  he  was,  Burns  was  for  him 
no  fetish  to  be  adored  blindly,  whose  every  verse  was 
to  be  raved  about  because  the  poet  was  a  genius.  He 
did  not  belong  to  that  class  of  men  who  cannot  believe 
that  Shakespeare  or  Milton  were  ever  dull;  or  that 
there  are  lines  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  which  might 
well  be  blotted  out;  or  that  George  Washington  never 
did  a  foolish  thing  or  Benedict  Arnold  a  good  one.  He 
recognized  the  truth  that  even  the  great  have  their 
failings,  as  they  must  have,  being  human;  all  the  more 
lovable,  more  honorable  perhaps  for  having  them. 
After  the  usual  introductory  essay  of  the  day,  treating 
of  the  relative  advantages  of  great  culture  and  of  hum 
ble  beginnings  in  the  making  of  a  true  poet,  and  arri 
ving  at  the  conclusion  that  such  a  poet  may  well  be  un 
encumbered  by  "the  pretended  helps  of  extended  study 
and  literary  society,"  he  calls  attention  to  the  harshness 
and  acrimony  of  Burns's  invective,  his  want  of  polish 
or  at  least  of  respectfulness  in  the  general  tone  of  his 
gallantry,  his  contempt  or  affectation  of  contempt  for 
prudence,  decency,  and  regularity;  his  frequent  mistake 
of  mere  exaggeration  and  violence  for  force  and  sub 
limity;  and  then  he  says: 

"With  the  allowances  and  exceptions  we  have  now 
stated,  we  think  Burns  entitled  to  the  rank  of  a  great 
and  original  genius.  He  has  in  all  his  compositions 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  125 

great  force  of  conception;  and  great  spirit  and  anima 
tion  in  its  expression.  He  has  taken  a  large  range 
through  the  region  of  Fancy  and  naturalized  himself 
in  almost  all  her  climates.  He  has  great  humor- 
great  powers  of  description— great  pathos— and  great 
discrimination  of  character.  Almost  everything  that 
he  says  has  spirit  and  originality;  and  everything  that 
he  says  well,  is  characterized  by  a  charming  facility, 
which  gives  a  grace  even  to  occasional  rudeness,  and 
communicates  to  the  reader  a  delightful  sympathy 
with  the  spontaneous  soaring  and  conscious  inspiration 
of  the  poet." 

What  he  wrote  of  The  Lady  of  the  Lake  in  the  num 
ber  for  August,  1810,  shows  his  capacity  of  estimating 
the  real  value  of  popular  works,  uninfluenced  by  per 
sonal  friendship  or  by  the  voice  of  the  multitude.  He 
gives  a  careful  study  of  the  elements  of  popularity  in 
poetry,  and  finds  the  great  secret  of  Scott's  popularity 
and  the  leading  characteristic  of  his  poetry  to  consist 
"in  this,  that  he  has  made  more  use  of  common  topics, 
images,  and  expressions  than  any  original  poet  of  later 
times ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  displayed  more  genius  and 
originality  than  any  recent  author  who  has  worked  in 
the  same  materials.  By  the  latter  peculiarity,  he  has 
entitled  himself  to  the  admiration  of  every  description 
of  readers; — by  the  former  he  is  recommended  in  an 
especial  manner  to  the  inexperienced— at  the  hazard  of 
some  little  offence  to  the  more  cultivated  and  fastid 
ious."  He  says  further: 

"There  is  nothing,  in  Mr.  Scott,  of  the  severe  and 
majestic  style  of  Milton— or  of  the  terse  and  fine  com 
position  of  Pope,— or  of  the  elaborate  elegance  and 
melody  of  Campbell,— or  even  of  the  flowing  and 
redundant  diction  of  Southey.  But  there  is  a  medley 
of  bright  images  and  glowing  words,  set  carelessly 


126  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

and  loosely  together — a  diction,  tinged  successively 
with  the  careless  richness  of  Shakespeare,  the  harsh 
ness  and  antique  simplicity  of  the  old  romances,  the 
homeliness  of  vulgar  ballads  and  anecdotes,  and  the 
sentimental  glitter  of  the  most  modern  poetry — pass 
ing  from  the  borders  of  the  ludicrous  to  those  of  the 
sublime— alternately  minute  and  energetic— sometimes 
artificial,  and  frequently  negligent— but  always  full 
of  spirit  and  vivacity — abounding  in  images  that  are 
striking,  at  first  sight,  to  minds  of  every  contexture  — 
and  never  expressing  a  sentiment  which  it  can  cost  the 
most  ordinary  reader  any  exertion  to  comprehend." 

t 

Jeffrey  praises  Scott's  vivifying  spirit  of  strength  and 
animation;  his  ease  of  production;  his  singular  talent 
for  description  and  "especially  for  the  description  of 
scenes  abounding  in  motion  or  action  of  any  kind";  the 
manner  in  which  "with  a  few  bold  and  abrupt  strokes 
he  finishes  a  most  spirited  outline,  and  then  instantly 
kindles  it  by  the  sudden  light  and  color  of  some  moral 
affection;"  the  "air  of  freedom  and  nature  which  he 
has  contrived  to  impart  to  most  of  his  distinguished 
characters,  and  with  which  no  poet  more  modern  than 
Shakespeare  has  ventured  to  represent  persons  of  such 
dignity."  At  the  same  time,  he  remarks  that  Scott  has 
"dazzled  the  reader  with  the  splendor,  and  even 
warmed  him  with  the  transient  heat  of  various  affec 
tions;  but  he  has  nowhere  fairly  kindled  him  with  en 
thusiasm,  or  melted  him  into  tenderness;"  and  he  thinks 
it  quite  obvious  that  "Mr.  Scott  has  not  aimed  at  writ 
ing  either  in  a  pure  or  a  very  consistent  style." 

He  had  not  written  of  Marmion  so  approvingly,  al 
though  it  was  brought  out  by  Constable,  who  was  pub 
lishing  the  Edinburgh.  It  is  said  that  Jeffrey  rather 
characteristically  sent  the  article  to  Scott  with  a  note 
saying  that  he  was  coming  to  dinner  on  the  following 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  127 

Tuesday.  Scott  felt  the  sting  of  the  review,  but  tried 
to  hide  his  feelings.  Mrs.  Scott,  however,  was  but 
frigidly  polite,  and  as  Jeffrey  was  taking  leave  forgot 
even  her  cold  politeness,  saying  in  her  broken  English: 

"Well,  guid  night,  Mr.  Jeffrey;  dey  tell  me  you 
have  abused  Scott  in  the  Review;  and  I  hope  Mr. 
Constable  has  paid  you  well  for  writing  it." 

These  quotations  have  been  given  partly  to  afford  a 
glimpse  of  Jeffrey  when  he  was  at  his  best  and  partly 
to  refute  the  assumption  that  he  was  always  finding 
fault  and  wounding  the  feelings  of  authors.  He  had, 
it  is  true,  some  very  decided  views  about  poetry,  which 
in  those  earlier  days  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  a 
serious  matter.  People  read  the  galloping  verses  of 
Scott  then  as  eagerly  as  in  later  times  they  devoured 
novels.  But  "suddenly  and  without  any  warning,"  as 
Besant  says,  "the  people  of  Great  Britain  left  off  read 
ing  poetry."  It  must  be  observed  that  both  of  the 
poets  so  favorably  regarded  by  Jeffrey  were  Scotchmen 
like  himself;  when  he  came  to  deal  with  Englishmen 
he  was  possibly  open  to  the  charge  of  undue  severity. 
Yet  Southey  was  not  much  vexed  by  the  review  of 
Thalaba.  He  called  it  "dishonest"  in  some  of  its  asser 
tions,  and  justly  remarks  that  the  first  part,  evidently 
an  answer  to  Wordsworth's  Preface  to  the  second  edi 
tion  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  is  utterly  irrelevant  to 
Thalaba.  "The  review  altogether  is  a  good  one,"  he 
writes  to  a  friend,  and  adds,  with  regard  to  some  of 
the  adverse  criticism,  "when  any  Scotchman's  book 
shall  come  to  be  reviewed,  then  see  what  the  Edinburgh 
critics  will  say."  A  review  of  Madoc  was  published 
in  the  number  for  October,  1805;  it  was  both  severe 


128  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

and  complimentary.     It  was  sent  to  Southey  before  it 
appeared,  and  Jeffrey  wrote  to  Horner: 

"Southey  is  to  be  here  to-day  with  P.  Elmsley.  I 
mean  to  let  him  read  my  review  of  Madoc  before  I 
put  myself  in  the  way  of  meeting  with  him.  He  is 
too  much  a  man  of  the  world,  I  believe,  in  spite  ^  of 
his  poesy,  to  decline  seeing  me,  whatever  he  may  think 
of  the  critic." 

They  did  meet,  and  Southey  wrote  to  Will  Taylor, 
on  October  22,  1805  : 

"I  have  seen  Jeffrey,  etc.  I  met  him  in  good  hu 
mor,  being  by  God's  blessing,  of  a  happy  temper. 
Having  seen  him,  it  would  be  impossible  to  be  angry 
at  anything  so  diminutive.  We  talked  upon  the  ques 
tion  of  taste,  on  which  we  are  at  issue;  he  is  a  mere 
child  upon  that  subject.  I  never  met  with  a  man  who 
was  so  easy  to  checkmate." 

Southey  evidently  felt  the  censure  more  keenly  than 
he  would  have  been  willing  to  confess.  As  Cockburn 
says: 

"Jeffrey's  being  a  child  in  taste,  and  easily  check 
mated  in  discussion  will  probably  strike  those  who 
knew  him  as  novelties  in  his  character." 

The  fact  that  if  Jeffrey  made  any  mistake  in  the 
review  of  Madoc,  it  was  in  lauding  the  poem  too  high 
ly.  It  was  one  of  poor  Southey' s  stupendous  failures. 

Dr.  Winchester  thinks  that  Jeffrey's  criticism  "has 
always  a  certain  hard  common-sense.  It  is  clear  and 
sane,  level  to  the  comprehension  of  everybody.  There 
is  nothing  subtle  in  it.  He  never  goes  much  below  the 
surface."  The  learned  essayist  then  calls  Jeffrey  dog 
matic  and  superficial,  and  says  that  he  was  unable  to 
apply  any  historical  method  in  criticism;  inconsistent, 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  129 

with  taste  narrowed  in  its  range  on  the  one  side  by  that 
hard  common  sense  of  his,  and  on  the  other  by  "a 
rather  prim  sentimentality."  Dr.  Winchester  seems 
disposed  to  find  fault  with  Jeffrey  because  in  the  first 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  he  did  not  write  in 
the  manner  of  the  first  decade  of  the  twentieth.  But 
it  is  not  easy  to  understand  why  he  should  accuse  Jeff 
rey  of  ignoring  Keats  because  "the  Edinburgh  had  no 
word  of  recognition  for  him,  and  only  broke  silence 
in  1820,  when  his  brief  career  was  closed."  The  article 
appeared  in  August,  1820,  and  Keats  died  in  his  twenty- 
sixth  year,  in  February,  1821 ;  so  that  the  delay  was  not 
extraordinary.  Endymion  first  appeared  in  1818  and 
attracted  little  attention  at  the  time.  The  "Lamia, 
Isabella,  the  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  and  other  Poems," 
which  was  the  immediate  occasion  of  the  review,  was 
published  early  in  July,  1820.  So  that  to  the  ordinary 
mind  it  appears  that  one  must  be  extremely  anxious  to 
find  fault  who  would  censure  Jeffrey  for  neglecting 
Keats. 

In  my  boyhood,  Chambers'  Cyclopaedia  of  Eng 
lish  Literature  was  regarded  as  a  trustworthy  guide, 
and  I  am  disposed  to  believe  that  it  deserved  its  reputa 
tion.  Its  verdict  upon  Jeffrey  bears  the  impress  of  fair 
ness  and  candor.  "There  is  some  ground,"  says  the  im 
partial  writer  who  has  manifestly  no  desire  to  be 
"smart"  or  censorious,  "for  charging  upon  the  Edin 
burgh  Review,  in  its  earlier  career,  an  absence  of  proper 
respect  and  enthusiasm  for  the  works  of  living  genius. 
Where  no  prepossession  of  the  kind  intervened,  Jeffrey 
was  an  admirable  critic.  If  he  was  not  profound,  he 
was  interesting  and  graceful.  His  dissertations  on  the 
works  of  Cowper,  Crabbe,  Byron,  Scott,  and  Campbell, 
and  on  the  earlier  and  greater  lights  of  our  poetry,  as 


1 30  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

well  as  those  on  moral  science,  national  manners,  and 
views  of  actual  life,  are  expressed  with  great  eloquence 
and  originality,  and  in  a  fine  spirit  of  humanity.  His 
powers  of  perception  and  analysis  were  quick,  subtle 
and  penetrating,  and  withal  comprehensive;  while  his 
brilliant  imagination  invested  subjects  that  in  ordinary 
hands  would  have  been  dry  and  uninviting,  with  strong 
interest  and  attraction.  He  seldom  gave  full  scope  to 
his  feelings  and  sympathies,  but  they  occasionally  broke 
forth  with  inimitable  effect  and  kindled  up  the  pages 
of  his  criticism." 

The  same  writer,  later  on,  observes  with  much 
force,  that  ('as  a  literary  critic,  we  may  advert  to  the 
singular  taste  and  judgment  with  Lord  Jeffrey  exer 
cised  in  making  selections  from  the  works  he  reviewed, 
and  interweaving  them,  as  it  were,  with  the  text  of 
his  criticism.  Whatever  was  picturesque,  solemn,  pa 
thetic,  or  sublime,  caught  his  eye,  and  was  thus  intro 
duced  to  a  new  and  vastly  extended  circle  of  readers, 
besides  furnishing  matter  for  various  collections  of 
extracts  and  innumerable  school  exercises.  The  chief 
defect  of  his  writing  is  the  occasional  diffuseness  and 
carelessness  of  his  style.  He  wrote  as  he  spoke,  with 
great  rapidity  and  with  a  flood  of  illustration."  I 
am  not  sure  that  an  author  who  ''writes  as  he  speaks" 
is  not,  after  all,  as  satisfactory  as  one  who  observes 
the  law  of  reticence  with  severity  and  strictness.  Surely 
his  work  is  readable,  and  as  the  eye  runs  rapidly  over 
the  printed  page,  no  time  is  wasted.  The  colloquial 
style  is,  however,  not  favored  by  every  reader.  Many 
prefer  that  their  mental  pabulum  should  be  supplied 
in  condensed  tablets,  and  prefer  the  concise,  the  epi 
grammatic  method. 

Some  remarks  of  Jeffrey,  in  his  review  of  Camp- 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  131 

bell's  Specimens  of  the  British  Poets  (1819),  impress 
me  as  significant  of  his  methods  of  judgment.  He 
says: 

"As  the  materials  of  enjoyment  and  instruction  ac 
cumulate  around  us,  more  and  more,  we  fear,  must 
thus  be  daily  rejected  and  left  to  waste.  For  while 
our  tasks  lengthen,  our  lives  remain  as  short  as  ever; 
and  the  calls  on  our  time  multiply,  while  our  time 
itself  is  flying  swiftly  away.  This  superfluity  and 
abundance  of  our  treasures,  therefore,  necessarily  ren 
der  much  of  them  worthless;  and  the  veriest  accidents 
may,  in  such  a  case,  determine  what  part  shall  be  pre 
served,  and  what  thrown  away  and  neglected.  When 
an  army  is  decimated,  the  very  bravest  may  fall;  and 
many  poets,  worthy  of  eternal  remembrance,  have 
probably  been  forgotten,  merely  because  there  was  not 
room  in  our  memories  for  all." 

And  looking  forward  to  1919,  he  says: 

"Our  living  poets  will  then  be  nearly  as  old  as 
Pope  and  Swift  are  at  present, — but  there  will 
stand  between  them  and  that  generation  nearly  ten 
times  as  much  fresh  and  fashionable  poetry  as  is  now 
interposed  between  us  and  those  writers;  —  and  if 
Scott  and  Byron  and  Campbell  have  already  cast  Pope 
and  Swift  a  good  deal  into  the  shade,  in  what  form 
and  dimensions  are  they  themselves  likely  to  be  pre 
sented  in  the  eyes  of  our  great  grandchildren?  The 
thought,  we  own,  is  a  little  appalling; — and  we  con 
fess  we  see  nothing  better  to  imagine  than  that  they 
may  find  a  comfortable  place  in  some  new  collection 
of  specimens — the  centenary  of  the  present  publica 
tion.  There— if  the  future  editor  have  anything  like 
the  indulgence  and  veneration  for  antiquity  of  his 
predecessor — there  shall  posterity  still  hang  with 
rapture  on  the  half  of  Campbell,  —  and  the  fourth  part 
of  Byron,  — and  the  sixth  of  Scott,  — and  the  scattered 
tythes  of  Crabbe,  —  and  the  three  per  cent,  of  Southey, 
— while  some  good-natured  critic  shall  sit  in  our 


132  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

mouldering  chair,  and  more  than  half  prefer  them  to 
those  by  whom  they  have  been  superseded! — It  is  an 
hyperbole  of  good-nature,  however,  we  fear,  to  as 
cribe  to  them  even  those  dimensions  at  the  end  of  a  cen 
tury.  After  a  lapse  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  we 
are  afraid  to  think  of  the  space  they  may  have  shrunk 
into.  We  have  no  Shakespeare,  alas !  to  shed  a  never- 
setting  light  on  his  contemporaries !  — and  if  we  con 
tinue  to  write  and  rhyme  at  the  present  rate  for  two 
hundred  years  longer,  there  must  be  some  new  art  of 
short-hand  reading  invented,  — or  all  reading  will  be 
given  up  in  despair." 

The  error  he  made  was  in  supposing  that  in  the 
twentieth  century,  poetry  would  be  a  matter  of  inter 
est  to  the  general  reader.  We  know  that  nobody  cares 
much  now  for  poetry;  it  has  ceased  to  be  a  subject  of 
concern  to  any  but  the  few;  if  it  is  read  at  all,  it  is  only 
by  the  student  of  literature,  for  the  multitude  of  men 
find  their  food  for  thought  in  science,  sociology  and 
fiction.  The  man  at  the  club  would  stare  in  hopeless 
surprise  at  any  reference  to  Pope,  or  Crabbe,  or  even 
Campbell,  modern  as  he  is,  and  say  to  himself  that  his 
interlocutor  was  a  queer  old  antediluvian,  and  a  mere 
burrower  in  the  rubbish  of  long  ago. 

Naturally  Jeffrey,  as  the  responsible  editor,  was 
compelled  sometimes  to  suffer  vicariously  for  the  of 
fense  of  others.  Everyone  knows  the  biting  review 
of  "Hours  of  Idleness,"  which  Brougham  wrote  for 
the  number  of  January,  1808,  and  how  Byron  fumed 
furiously  in  the  somewhat  labored  satire  of  "English 
Bards  and  Scottish  Reviewers,"  pouring  forth  his 
vitriolic  wrath  upon  Jeffrey  in  particular.  But  Byron 
repented  of  his  assault  when  in  later  years  he  came 
to  know  the  worth  of  the  man  he  libelled.  He  had 
said: 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  133 

"Believe  a  woman  or  an  epitaph, 
Or  any  other  thing  that's  false,  before 
You  trust  in  critics,  who  themselves  are  sore; 
Or  yield  one  single  thought  to  be  misled 
By  Jeffrey's  heart  or  Lambe's   Boeotian  head." 

In  1816  he  wrote: 

"This  was  not  just.  Neither  the  heart  nor  the  head 
of  these  gentlemen  are  at  all  what  they  are  here  rep 
resented.  At  the  time  this  was  written,  I  was  per 
sonally  not  acquainted  with  either." 

Later  in  the  satire  he  exclaimed: 

"Health  to  immortal  Jeffrey!  once  in  name 
England  could  boast  a  judge  almost  the  same!' 

To  compare  Jeffrey  with  Jeffreys  seems  to  have 
been  a  favorite  occupation  of  wounded  authors  in 
those  days:  each  one  appeared  to  think  that  his  con 
ceit  was  original.  Byron  goes  on  to  give  vent  to  a 
tirade  somewhat  tedious,  in  the  course  of  which  he 
makes  much  of  the  Moore  duel,  described  later  on. 
But  in  his  Diary  (1814)  he  recorded  his  recantation. 
"I  have  often,"  he  says,  "since  my  return  to  Eng 
land,  heard  Jeffrey  most  highly  commended  by  those 
who  knew  him,  for  things  independent  of  his  talents. 
I  admired  him  for  this— not  because  he  has  praised 
me,  but  because  he  is,  perhaps,  the  only  man  who,  un 
der  the  relations  in  which  he  and  I  stand  or  stood  with 
regard  to  each  other,  would  have  had  the  liberality  to 
act  thus:  none  but  a  great  soul  dared  hazard  it — a 
little  scribbler  would  have  gone  on  cavilling  to  the  end 
of  the  chapter."  Jeffrey,  in  1812,  reviewing  the  first 
and  second  cantos  of  Childe  Harold,  had  referred  to 
the  scurrilous  stings  of  the  satire  by  saying  that  "per 
sonalities  so  outrageous  were  only  injurious  to  their 


134  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

author."     Byron  tried  to  make  amends  in  the  tenth 
canto  of  Don  Juan  by  saying: 

"And  all  our  little  feuds,  at  least  all  mine, 
Dear  Jeffrey,  once  my  most  redoubted  foe 

(As  far  as  rhyme  and  criticism  combine 
To  make  such  puppets  of  us  things  below,) 

Are  over;  Here's  a  health  to  'Auld  Lang  Syne!* 
I  do  not  know  you,  and  may  never  know 

Your  face — but  you  have  acted  on  the  whole 

Most  nobly,  and  I  own  it  from  my  soul. 

And  when  I  use  the  phrase  of  'Auld  Lang  Syne !' 
'Tis  not  addressed  to  you — the  more's  the  pity 

For  me,  for  I  would  rather  take  my  wine 

With  you,  than  aught  (save  Scott)  in  your  proud 
city." 

Miss  Anna  Seward,  that  plump  Swan  of  Lichfield 
whose  story  has  been  told  so  charmingly  of  late  by 
E.  V.  Lucas,  was  plainly  enraged  when  she  wrote  to 
Sir  Walter  Scott  on  June  20,  1806:  "Not  even  you 
can  teach  me  to  esteem  him  whom  you  call  your  little 
friend  Jeffrey,  the  Edinburgh  Reviewer.  Jeffries 
ought  to  have  been  his  name,  since  so  similar  his  na 
ture.  On  his  self-placed  bench  of  decision  on  poetic 
works,  he  is  all  that  Jefferies  was  when  tyranny  had 
thrown  the  judicial  robe  on  his  shoulder." 

It  was  in  this  year,  1806,  when  Jeffrey  made  such 
an  attack  upon  the  Odes  and  Epistles  of  Thomas 
Moore  that  a  rather  comical  duel  followed,  which  be 
gan  by  Moore's  telling  Jeffrey  a  funny  story  and  end 
ed  by  the  timely  arrival  of  the  police  who  haled  the 
Scotchman  and  the  Irishman,  with  their  seconds,  Hor- 
ner  and  Hume,  to  Bow  Street,  where  all  began  to  talk 
on  literary  subjects.  "But  whatever  was  the  topic," 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  135 

writes  Moore  in  his  voluminous  Memoirs,  "Jeffrey,  I 
recollect,  expatiated  upon  it  with  all  his  peculiar  flu 
ency  and  eloquence ;  and  I  can  now  most  vividly  recall 
him  to  my  memory,  as  he  lay  upon  his  back  on  a  form 
which  stood  beside  the  wall,  pouring  volubly  forth  his 
fluent  but  most  oddly  pronounced  diction,  and  dress 
ing  his  subject  out  in  every  variety  of  array  that  an 
ever  rich  and  ready  wardrobe  of  phraseology  could 
supply."  They  took  a  liking  each  to  the  other  and 
became  warm  friends;  and  Moore  records  with  pride 
how  Jeffrey  said  to  him,  twenty-one  years  later,  re 
ferring  to  the  Life  of  Sheridan,  "Here  is  a  convinc 
ing  proof  that  you  can  think  and  reason  solidly  and 
manfully,  and  treat  the  gravest  and  most  important 
subjects  in  a  manner  worthy  of  them." 

The  poet  had  some  provocation,  for  in  the  review  of 
his  poems  (Edinburgh  Review,  No.  xvi.,  July,  1806), 
Jeffrey  had  written  of  him  as  "the  most  licentious  of 
modern  versifiers,  and  the  most  poetical  of  the  propa 
gators  of  impiety,"  adding  what  Moore  understood 
to  be  a  charge  of  mercenary  motives.  The  duelists 
met  at  Chalk  Farm,  but  the  police  interfered  and  it 
was  found  that  one  of  the  pistols  had  no  ball  in  it.  So 
Byron,  in  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers  could 
not  refrain  from  saying: 

"Can  none  remember  that  eventful  day, 
That  ever  glorious,    almost   fatal   fray, 
When  Little's  leadless  pistol  met  his  eye 
And  Bow  Street  myrmidons  stood  laughing  by?" 

Moore  insisted  that  his  pistol  was  loaded,  and  tried 
to  send  a  challenge  to  Byron,  but  the  friend  to  whom 
it  was  entrusted  contrived  to  forget  all  about  it.  Theo 
dore  Hook,  in  the  Man  of  Sorrow  perpetrated  this 
epigram : 


i36  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

"When  Anacreon  would  fight,  as  the  poets  have  said, 

A  reverse  he  display'd  in  his  vapor, 
For  while  all  his  poems  were  loaded  with  lead, 

His  pistols  were  loaded  with  paper! 
For  excuses,  Anacreon  old  custom  many  thank, 

Such  a  salvo  he  would  not  abuse, 
For  the  cartridge,  by  rule,  is  alway  made  blank, 

Which  is  fired  away  at  Reviews." 

The  whole  story  is  told  fully  in  Moore's  Memoirs 
as  well  as  by  Cockburn,  and  it  is  the  subject  of  com 
ment  in  many  contemporary  works.  In  Clayden's 
account  of  "Rogers  and  his  Contemporaries,"  other 
details  are  furnished.  The  banker-poet  is  brought 
into  the  field.  "Jeffrey,"  says  Clayden,  "had  written 
a  slashing  review  of  Moore's  Epistles,  Odes  and  other 
Poems,  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for  July,  1806,  and 
was  apparently  conscious  that  he  had  done  Moore  in 
justice.  Rogers  met  him  at  Lord  Fincastle's  at  dinner 
in  the  early  summer,  and  the  conversation  turned  on 
Moore.  Lord  Fincastle  described  the  new  poet  as 
having  great  amenity  of  manner,  and  Jeffrey  laughing 
ly  replied,  'I  am  afraid  he  would  not  show  much 
amenity  to  me.'  The  insult  and  challenge  followed 
soon  after  this  conversation,  and  a  meeting  was  ar 
ranged  at  Chalk  Farm.  William  Spencer  had  heard 
of  it,  and  had  told  the  police,  and,  when  the  combatants 
were  about  to  fire,  the  police  appeared  and  took  them 
all  off  to  the  station.  Moore  sent  for  Spencer  to  bail 
him,  but  Rogers  had  heard  of  the  arrest  and  was  on 
the  spot  in  time  to  give  the  necessary  security.  This 
quarrel  of  two  friends  gave  Rogers  an  opportunity  of 
playing  his  favorite  part  of  peacemaker.  He  carried 
messages  between  the  combatants,  containing,  as  Moore 
says,  those  formalities  of  explanation  which  the  world 
requires,  and  arranged  that  they  should  meet  at  his 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  137 

house."  Rogers,  in  his  Table  Talk,  gives  a  brief  ac 
count  of  his  relation  to  the  duel,  and  adds:  "The  poet 
and  the  critic  were  mutually  reconciled  by  means  of 
Horner  and  myself :  they  shook  hands  with  each  other 
in  the  garden  behind  my  house."  They  may  have 
shaken  hands  there,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  Rogers 
really  had  as  much  to  do  with  the  reconciliation  as  all 
this  implies.  In  Clayden's  book  is  given  in  full  the  let 
ter  of  Jeffrey  to  Rogers,  written  from  Edinburgh,  July 
30,  1819,  in  which  his  gerierous  liberality  is  exhibited. 
He  says : 

"I  have  been  very  much  shocked  and  disturbed  by 
observing  in  the  newspapers  the  great  pecuniary  calam 
ity  which  has  fallen  on  our  excellent  friend  Moore,  and 
not  being  able  to  get  any  distinct  information  either  as 
to  its  extent,  or  its  probable  consequences,  from  any 
body  here,  I  have  thought  it  best  to  relieve  my  anxiety 
by  applying  to  you,  whose  kind  concern  in  him  must 
both  have  made  you  acquainted  with  all  the  particulars, 
and  willing,  I  hope,  to  satisfy  the  enquiries  of  one  who 
sincerely  shares  in  that  concern.  *  *  *  I  have, 
unfortunately,  not  a  great  deal  of  money  to  spare.  But 
if  it  should  be  found  practicable  to  relieve  him  from 
this  unmerited  distress  by  any  contribution,  I  beg  leave 
to  say  that  I  shall  think  it  an  honor  to  be  allowed  to 
take  share  in  it  to  the  extent  of  300  /.  or  500  /.,  and 
that  I  could  advance  more  than  double  the  sum  named 
above  upon  any  reasonable  security  of  ultimate  repay 
ment,  however  long  postponed." 

In  his  own  account  of  the  Moore  affair,  Jeffrey, 
writing  to  his  friend,  George  Bell  (August  22,  1806), 
says: 

"Moore  agreed  to  withdraw  his  defiance;  and  then 
I  had  no  hesitation  in  assuring  him  (as  I  was  ready  to 
have  done  at  the  beginning,  if  he  had  applied  arnica- 


138  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

bly)  that  in  writing  the  review  I  considered  myself 
merely  as  the  censor  of  the  morality  of  his  book,  and 
that  I  intended  to  assert  nothing  as  to  the  personal  mo 
tives  or  personal  character  of  the  author,  of  whom 
I  had  no  knowledge  at  the  time.  *  *  *  We  have 
since  breakfasted  together  very  lovingly.  *  *  * 
You  are  too  severe  upon  the  little  man.  He  has  be 
haved  with  great  spirit  throughout  this  business.  He 
really  is  not  profligate,  and  is  universally  regarded, 
even  by  those  who  resent  the  style  of  his  poetry,  as 
an  innocent,  good-hearted,  idle  fellow.  *  *  * 
We  were  very  near  going  to  Hamburgh  after  we  had 
been  bound  over  here;  but  it  is  much  better  as  it  is.  I 
am  glad  to  have  gone  through  this  scene,  both  be 
cause  it  satisfies  me  that  my  nerves  are  good  enough 
to  enable  me  to  act  in  conformity  to  my  notions  of 
propriety  without  any  suffering,  and  because  it  also  as 
sures  me  that  I  am  really  as  little  in  love  with  life  as 
I  have  been  for  some  time  in  the  habit  of  professing." 

This  indifference  to  life  arose  from  the  depression 
caused  by  the  death  of  his  sister  Mary  (Mrs.  Napier) 
and  by  a  still  greater  affliction  which  for  a  time  threat 
ened  to  drive  him  from  his  literary  and  professional 
work.  His  wife,  whom  he  loved  devotedly,  died  on 
August  8,  1805. 

The  Edinburgh  was  not  destined  to  continue  long 
without  a  rival.  Its  open  disapproval  of  the  war  with 
France,  rather  than  its  advocacy  of  domestic  reforms, 
not  only  aroused  the  indignation  of  the  Tories  but 
offended  many  of  the  moderate  men  of  the  class  who 
consider  it  to  be  unpatriotic  to  oppose  a  government 
during  the  pendency  of  a  conflict  in  which  the  nation 
may  be  at  the  time  engaged,  however  they  may  have 
deplored  the  beginning  of  such  a  conflict.  We  had  ex 
amples  of  our  own  in  the  Civil  War  of  1861-1865,  and 
in  the  Spanish  War  of  1898.  The  final  offense  which 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  139 

provoked  the  loyal  Britons  was  a  review  by  Jeffrey 
(with  some  help  from  Brougham)  of  Don  Pedro 
Ceballos's  account  of  the  French  Usurpation  in  Spain, 
which  appeared  in  the  number  for  October,  1808. 
Jeffrey  "dared  to  despair  of  what  was  then  called  the 
regeneration  of  Spain;  and  this  at  the  very  moment 
when  the  hearts  of  most  of  the  English  people  were 
agitated  with  delight  in  the  belief  that  this  glorious 
change  had  already  begun  and  that  the  Peninsula  was 
henceforth  to  be  inhabited  by  a  population  of  pa 
triots."*  Jeffrey  was  more  accurate  in  his  forecast 
than  he  was  a  little  later  when  he  wrote  to  Horner 
that  his  "honest  impression"  was  that  Bonaparte  would 
be  "in  Dublin  in  about  fifteen  months,  perhaps  sooner." 
In  that  event,  he  said  he  would  "try  to  go  to  America." 
The  Tories  brought  out  their  Quarterly  Review  in 
February,  1809,  and  Sir  Walter  Scott  went  over  to  it. 
It  does  not  seem  to  have  injured  the  Edinburgh  seri 
ously.  When  Jeffrey  saw  the  first  number  he  wrote : 

"I  have  seen  the  Quarterly  this  morning.  It  is  an 
inspired  work,  compared  with  the  pen  prattle  of  Cum 
berland.  But  I  do  not  think  it  very  formidable;  and 
if  it  were  not  for  our  offences,  I  should  have  no  fear 
about  its  consequences." 

In  March  he  wrote  to  Horner: 

"Tell  me  what  you  hear,  and  what  you  think  of  this 
new  Quarterly;  and  do  not  let  yourself  imagine  that  I 
feel  any  unworthy  jealousy,  and  still  less  any  unworthy 
fear,  on  the  occasion.  My  natural  indolence  would 
have  been  better  pleased  not  to  be  always  in  sight  of 
an  alert  and  keen  antagonist.  But  I  do  rejoice  at 
the  prospect  of  this  kind  of  literature,  which  seems  to 
be  more  and  more  attended  to  than  any  other,  being 

*Cockburn's  Life  of  Jeffrey.     I- 192. 


140  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

generally  improved  in  quality,  and  shall  be  found  to 
have  set  an  example." 

This  was  manifestly  said  in  all  sincerity,  and  Jeffrey 
was  shrewd  enough  to  perceive  that  rivalry  and  com 
petition  would  advance  the  fortunes  of  his  Review  in 
stead  of  retarding  them.  In  fact,  the  Edinburgh  was 
not  at  first  particularly  Whiggish.  Scott,  who  was  any 
thing  but  a  Whig,  had  been  a  contributor  for  years 
before  the  Ceballos  article  appeared,  and  as  late  as 
1807  advised  Southey  to  follow  his  example.  In  No 
vember,  1808,  Scott  wrote  to  his  brother-in-law,  say 
ing  that  Jeffrey  had  "offered  terms  of  pacification,  en 
gaging  that  no  party  politics  should  again  appear  in 
his  'Review',"  but  after  this  letter  had  been  given  out 
in  Lockhart's  Life,  Jeffrey  insisted,  in  the  preface  to 
his  collected  essays,  that  he  had  been  misunderstood 
and  added  that  he  had  told  Sir  Walter  that  he  had 
for  six  years  regarded  politics  as  "the  right  leg"  of  the 
Review.  The  real  attitude  of  Jeffrey  is  shown  by  a  let 
ter  which  he  wrote  to  Horner,  on  December  6,  1808, 
quoted  by  Horner  in  his  Memoirs  (i.  464)  when,  ask 
ing  help  in  the  day  of  need,  he  told  Horner  to  write 
anything,  "only  no  party  politics,  and  nothing  but  ex 
emplary  moderation  and  impartiality  on  all  politics." 
In  fact,  while  his  contributors  were  all  inclined  to  lib 
eralism,  Jeffrey  himself  wrote  very  few  political  essays. 
His  tendency  was  Whiggish,  but  he  was  not  enthusi 
astic;  he  was  not  a  sympathizer  with  Cobbett  or  Ben- 
tham,  and  even  thought  that  Carlyle  was  too  much  in 
earnest.  The  radicals,  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  says,  regarded 
him  as  a  mere  trimmer.  So  he  met  with  the  approval 
of  neither  faction  of  extremists,  the  usual  fate  of  hon 
est  men  who  have  a  strong  sense  of  justice  and  abhor 
tyranny  whether  of  the  mob  or  of  the  aristocracy. 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER 

In  1803  he  decided  not  to  accept  a  professorship 
of  moral  and  political  science  in  a  college  at  Calcutta, 
although,  according  to  Horner,  his  professional  income 
was  then  only  about  £240.  In  that  year  he  "became 
an  ensign  in  a  volunteer  regiment,  with  a  strong  con 
viction  that  an  invasion  was  imminent,  but  showed  so 
little  military  aptitude  that  he  was  never  at  home  in 
his  uniform,  and  could  hardly,  according  to  Cockburn, 
"face  his  company  to  the  right  or  left."  His  social  suc 
cess,  however,  was  marked,  but  he  was  despondent,  as 
we  have  seen,  after  the  death  of  his  sister  and  of  his 
wife,  following  the  loss  of  his  child,  born  in  September, 
1802,  and  dying  in  October  of  the  same  year.  He 
bravely  worked  on  and  with  courage  pursued  his  way 
both  in  society  and  in  his  literary  and  professional 
labors.  His  practice  grew,  and,  although  he  was  neither 
learned  nor  profound,  he  was  successful  before  juries 
and  often  argued  appeals  in  the  House  of  Lords. 
After  1807  he  had,  as  Cockburn  says,  an  "unchallenged 
monopoly  on  one  side,"  before  the  general  assembly, 
and  when  the  jury  system  for  the  trial  of  issues  of  fact 
in  civil  cases  was  introduced  in  1816,  he  was  employed 
in  almost  every  trial.  His  manner  was  artificial,  he 
had  a  tendency  to  refine  too  much,  but  he  had  an  ex 
cellent  memory  for  details,  much  sagacity,  and  a  charm 
of  manner  which  was  most  effective  before  juries  and 
popular  bodies.  He  was  engaged  in  the  trial  of  Mac- 
laren  and  Bird  for  sedition  in  1817,  and  defended  suc 
cessfully  several  criminals.  So  his  repute  as  a  lawyer 
increased  in  spite  of  his  editorial  occupations. 

In  1810  he  removed  from  Queen  Street  to  92 
George  Street,  which  was  his  Edinburgh  home  until 
he  moved  to  24  Moray  Place  in  1827.  In  1810  he 
became  acquainted  with  a  daughter  of  Charles  Wilkes 


142  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

of  New  York,  who  was  visiting  Scotland  in  company 
with  her  aunt.  She  was  a  grand-niece  of  John  Wilkes 
and  a  near  connection  of  Captain  Charles  Wilkes, 
long  years  afterwards  famous  as  an  explorer  and  as 
the  captor  of  Mason  and  Slidell.  He  fell  in  love  with 
her,  and  after  her  return  to  America  decided  to  go 
there,  leaving  his  clients  to  look  after  themselves  as 
best  they  might  and  entrusting  the  Review  to  his 
friends.  He  had  a  most  uncomfortable  voyage,  but 
reached  New  York  in  October,  1813,  and  married 
Miss  Wilkes  very  soon  afterwards,  returning  to  Eng 
land  in  February,  1814. 

In  may  not  be  without  interest  to  Americans  to  re 
member  that  he  never  shared  in  the  hostility  towards 
them  which  was  prevalent  in  his  time.  Perhaps  his 
personal  experiences  in  the  United  States  in  1813- 
1814  and  his  marriage  to  an  American  woman  were 
accountable  in  part  for  his  friendliness.  On  his  visit 
he  had  two  interviews  with  the  men  whom  Lord  Cock- 
burn— with  the  fine  indifference  of  a  Briton  to  the 
names  of  our  public  officials— calls  "Mr.  Munroe,  the 
Secretary"  and  "Mr.  Maddison,  the  President,"  with 
whom  he  discussed  fully  the  problems  of  the  pending 
war;  and  he  dined  with  the  President.* 

Naturally  his  views  were  not  in  accord  with  those 
of  Madison  and  Monroe,  but  the  debate  appears,  by 
Jeffrey's  account,  to  have  been  conducted  with  dignity 
and  courtesy  although  without  any  practical  result. 
The  truth  is  that  neither  party  to  the  "War  of  1812" 

*Cockburn,  I.,  226-227.  It  is  curious  that  long  years  after 
wards,  Sir  Alexander  James  Cockburn,  at  a  dinner,  asked  a 
relative  of  mine  why  Chief  Justice  Chase  did  not  come  over  to 
England,  as  they  would  be  glad  to  do  him  honor.  Chase  had 
died  some  time  before,  but  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  had  not 
heard  of  it. 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  143 

could  afford  to  boast  very  much  about  the  merits  of 
its  cause,  and  both  of  the  belligerents  were  wrong  in 
many  ways.  In  May,  1820,  Jeffrey  published  an  ar 
ticle  in  the  Edinburgh  on  the  jealousies  between  Amer 
ica  and  Great  Britain,  of  which  Cockburn  says: 

"He  had  constantly  endeavored  to  remove  the  irri 
tations  which  made  these  two  kindred  nations  think 
so  uncharitably  and  so  absurdly  of  each  other." 

When  Jeffrey  reprinted  the  paper  in  his  Selected 
Contributions  he  added  in  a  note : 

"There  is  no  one  feeling,  having  public  concerns 
for  its  object,  with  which  I  have  been  so  long  and  so 
deeply  impressed,  as  that  of  the  vast  importance  of 
our  maintaining  friendly,  and  even  cordial  relations, 
with  the  free,  peaceful,  moral,  and  industrious  States 
of  America— a  condition  upon  which  I  cannot  help 
thinking  that  not  only  our  own  freedom  and  prosper 
ity,  but  that  of  the  better  part  of  the  world,  will  ul 
timately  be  found  to  be  more  and  more  dependent." 

Like  many  Britons,  he  was  at  his  worst  in  a  foreign 
country  and  appears  to  have  created  an  impression 
wholly  erroneous  regarding  his  personality.  George 
Ticknor,  who  met  him  in  the  United  States,  and  after 
wards  again  in  Edinburgh  in  1819,  says  in  his  Journals 
that  Jeffrey  "both  here  and  in  his  own  house  and  all 
society,  was  a  much  more  domestic,  quiet  sort  of  per 
son  that  we  found  him  in  America."  One  of  the  best 
pen  portraits  of  him  is  given  by  Ticknor  in  a  letter  to 
his  friend,  Charles  S.  Davies  of  Portland,  dated  on 
February  8,  1814,*  in  which  he  says: 

"I  had  seriously  intended  to  send  you  a  sketch  of 
the  Abraham  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  while  I  was 

*Life,  Letters  and  Journals  of  George  Ticknor,  I.,  43. 


i44  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

running  over  with  speculations  and  opinions  about 
him.*  *  * 

"You  are  to  imagine  *  *  *  before  you,  a 
short,  stout  little  gentleman,  about  five  and  a  half  feet 
high,  with  a  very  red  face,  black  hair,  and  black  eyes. 
You  are  to  suppose  him  to  possess  a  very  gay  and  ani 
mated  countenance,  and  you  are  to  see  in  him  all  the 
restlessness  of  a  will-o'-wisp,  and  all  that  fitful  irregu 
larity  in  his  movements  which  you  have  heretofore 
appropriated  to  the  pasteboard  Merry  Andrews 
whose  limbs  are  jerked  about  with  a  wire.  These  you 
are  to  interpret  as  the  natural  indication  of  the  im 
petuous  and  impatient  character  which  a  further  ac 
quaintance  develops. 

"He  enters  a  room  with  a  countenance  so  satisfied, 
and  a  step  so  light  and  almost  fantastic,  that  all  your 
previous  impressions  of  the  dignity  and  severity  of  the 
Edinburgh  Review  are  immediately  put  to  flight,  and, 
passing  at  once  to  the  opposite  extreme,  you  might, 
perhaps,  imagine  him  to  be  frivolous,  vain,  and  super 
cilious.  He  accosts  you,  too,  with  a  freedom  and 
familiarity  which  may,  perhaps,  put  you  at  your  ease, 
and  render  conversation  unceremonious;  but  which, 
as  I  observed  in  several  instances,  were  not  very  toler 
able  to  those  who  had  always  been  accustomed  to  the 
delicacy  and  decorum  of  refined  society.  Mr.  Jeffrey, 
therefore,  I  remarked,  often  suffered  from  the  pre 
possessions  of  those  he  met,  before  any  regular  con 
versation  commenced,  and  almost  before  the  tones  of 
his  voice  were  heard.  It  is  not  possible,  however,  to 
be  long  in  his  presence  without  understanding  some 
thing  of  his  real  character — for  the  same  promptness 
and  assurance  which  mark  his  entrance  into  a  room 
carry  him  at  once  into  conversation.  The  moment  a 
topic  is  suggested — no  matter  what  or  by  whom — he 
comes  forth,  and  the  first  thing  you  observe  is  his 
singular  fluency. 

"He  bursts  upon  you  with  a  torrent  of  remarks,  and 
you  are  for  some  time  so  much  amused  with  his  earn 
estness  and  volubility,  that  you  forget  to  ask  yourself 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  145 

whether  they  have  either  appropriateness  or  meaning. 
When,  however,  you  come  to  consider  his  remarks 
closely,  you  are  surprised  to  find  that,  nothwithstand- 
ing  his  prodigious  rapidity,  the  current  of  his  langu 
age  never  flows  faster  than  the  current  of  his  thoughts. 
You  are  surprised  to  discover  that  he  is  never,  like 
other  impetuous  speakers,  driven  to  amplification  and 
repetition  in  order  to  gain  time  to  collect  and  arrange 
his  ideas;  you  are  surprised  to  find  that,  while  his  con 
versation  is  poured  forth  in  such  a  fervor  and  tumult 
of  eloquence  that  you  can  scarcely  follow  or  compre 
hend  it,^it  is  still  as  compact  and  logical  as  if  he  were 
contending  for  a  victory  in  the  schools  or  for  a  deci 
sion  from  the  bench. 

"After  all  this,  however,  you  do  not  begin  to  un 
derstand  Mr.  Jeffrey's  character;  for  it  is  not  until  you 
become  interested  in  the  mere  discussion,  until  you 
forget  his  earnestness,  his  volubility,  and  his  skill,  that 
you  begin  to  feel  something  of  the  full  extent  of  his 
powers.  You  do  not,  till  then,  see  with  how  strong 
and  steady  a  hand  he  seizes  the  subject,  and  with  what 
ease,  as  well  as  dexterity,  he  turns  and  examines  it  on 
every  side.  _You  are  not,  until  then,  convinced  that  he 
but  plays  with  what  is  the  labor  of  ordinary  minds, 
and  that  half  his  faculties  are  not  called  into  exercise 
by  what  you  at  first  suppose  would  tax  his  whole 
strength.  And,  after  all,  you  are  able  to  estimate  him, 
not  by  what  you  witness,  — for  he  is  always  above  a 
topic  which  can  be  made  the  subject  of  conversation,— 
but  by  what  you  imagine  he  would  be  able  to  do  if  he 
were  excited  by  a  great  and  difficult  subject  and  a  pow 
erful  adversary. 

"With  all  this,  he  preserves  in  your  estimation  a 
transparent  simplicity  of  character.  You  are  satisfied 
that  he  does  nothing  for  effect  and  show;  you  see  that 
he  never  chooses  the  subject,  and  never  leads  the  con 
versation  in  such  a  way  as  best  to  display  his  own 
powers  and  acquirements.  You  see  that  he  is  not  am 
bitious  of  being  thought  a  wit;  and  that,  when  he  has 
been  most  fortunate  in  his  argument  or  illustration,  he 


146  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

never  looks  round,  as  some  great  men  do,  to  observe 
what  impression  he  has  produced  upon  his  hearers.  In 
short,  you  could  not  be  in  his  presence  an  hour  with 
out  being  convinced  that  he  has  neither  artifice  nor 
affectation;  that  he  does  not  talk  from  the  pride  of 
skill  or  of  victory,  but  because  his  mind  is  full  to  over 
flowing,  and  conversation  is  his  relief  and  pleasure. 

uBut  nothwithstanding  everybody  saw  and  acknowl 
edged  these  traits  in  Mr.  Jeffrey's  character,  he  was 
very  far  from  winning  the  good  opinion  of  all.  There 
were  still  not  a  few  who  complained  that  he  was  super 
cilious,  and  that  he  thought  himself  of  a  different  and 
higher  order  from  those  he  met;  that  he  had  been  used 
to  dictate  until  he  was  unwilling  to  listen,  and  that  he 
had  been  fed  upon  admiration  until  it  had  become 
common  food,  and  he  received  it  as  a  matter  of  course. 

"There  is  some  ground  for  this  complaint,  but  I 
think  the  circumstances  of  the  case  should  take  its  edge 
from  censure.  It  seems  to  me  that  Mr.  Jeffrey  has 
enough  of  that  amiable  feeling  from  which  politeness 
and  the  whole  system  of  the  petite  morale  springs.  But 
that  he  has  not  learned  the  necessary  art  of  distribut 
ing  it  in  judicious  proportions.  He  shows  the  same 
degree  of  deference  to  every  one  he  meets;  and,  there 
fore,  while  he  flatters  by  his  civility  those  who  are  lit 
tle  accustomed  to  attention  from  their  superiors,  he 
disappoints  the  reasonable  expectations  of  those  who 
have  received  the  homage  of  all  around  them  until  it 
has  become  a  part  of  their  just  expectations  and 
claims. 

uThis,  at  least,  was  the  distinction  here.  The 
young  men  and  the  literary  men  all  admired  him;  the 
old  men  and  the  politicians  found  their  opinions  and 
dignity  too  little  regarded  by  the  impetuous  stranger. 
The  reasons  of  this  are  to  be  sought,  I  think,  in  his 
education  and  constitution;  and  I  was,  therefore,  not 
disposed  to  like  him  less  for  his  defect.  I  was  not  dis 
posed  to  claim  for  a  man  who  must  have  passed  his 
youth  in  severe  and  solitary  study,  and  who  was  not 
brought  into  that  class  of  society  which  refines  and 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  147 

fashions  all  the  external  expressions  of  character,  un 
til  his  mind  and  habits  were  matured,  and  he  was 
brought  there  to  be  admired  and  to  dictate.  I  was  not 
disposed  to  claim  from  him  that  gentleness  and  deli 
cacy  of  manners  which  are  acquired  only  by  early  dis 
cipline,  and  which  are  most  obvious  in  those  who  have 
received,  perhaps,  their  very  character  and  direction 
from  early  collision  with  their  superiors  in  station  or 
talent. 

"Besides,  even  admitting  that  Mr.  Jeffrey  could 
have  early  been  introduced  to  refined  society,  still  I  do 
not  think  his  character  would  have  been  much  changed; 
or,  if  it  had  been,  that  it  would  have  been  changed  for 
the  better.  I  do  not  think  it  would  have  been  possible 
to  have  drilled  him  into  the  strict  forms  of  society  and 
bienseance  without  taking  from  him  something  we 
should  be  very  sorry  to  lose. 

"There  seems  to  me  to  be  a  prodigious  rapidity  in 
his  mind  which  could  not  be  taken  away  without  di 
minishing  its  force;  and  yet  it  is  this  rapidity,  I  think, 
which  often  offended  some  of  my  older  friends,  in  the 
form  of  impatience  and  abruptness.  He  has,  too,  a 
promptness  and  decision  which  contribute,  no  doubt, 
to  the  general  power  of  his  mind,  and  certainly  could 
not  be  repressed  without  taking  away  much  of  that 
zeal  which  carries  him  forward  in  his  labors,  and  gives 
so  lively  an  interest  to  his  conversation;  yet  you  could 
not  be  an  hour  in  his  presence  without  observing  that 
his  promptness  and  decision  very  often  make  him  ap 
pear  peremptory  and  assuming. 

"In  short,  he  has  such  a  familiar  acquaintance  with 
almost  all  the  subjects  of  human  knowledge,  and  con 
sequently  such  an  intimate  conviction  that  he  is  right, 
and  such  a  habit  of  carrying  his  point;  he  passes,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  with  such  intuitive  rapidity  from  thought 
to  thought,  and  subject  to  subject,  that  his  mind  is 
completely  occupied  and  satisfied  with  its  own  knowl 
edge  and  operations,  and  has  no  attention  left  to  be 
stow  on  the  tones  and  manner  of  expression.  He  is, 
in  fact,  so  much  absorbed  with  the  weightier  matters  of 


i48  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

the  discussion, — with  the  subject,  the  argument,  and 
the  illustrations, — that  he  forgets  the  small  tithe  of 
humanity  and  forbearance  which  he  owes  to  every 
one  with  whom  he  converses;  and  I  was  not  one  of 
those  who  ever  wished  to  correct  his  forgetfulness,  or 
remind  him  of  his  debt." 

This  is  all  very  graphic,  but  it  is  amazing  to  observe 
the  lofty  attitude  of  the  young  New  Englander  of 
twenty-three,  for  that  was  Ticknor's  age  when  he  thus 
delivered  his  judgment.  One  may  indulge  in  a  little 
merriment  over  his  airy  affectation  of  social  superior 
ity.  When  we  realize  what  Jeffrey's  social  life  had 
been,  the  patronizing  tone,  the  assumption  of  dignity, 
conveyed  by  the  lad's  phrases,  moves  us  to  laughter. 
The  solemn  prigs  of  Massachusetts  of  1814 — so  wise 
and  great  in  their  petty  environment !— what  was  their 
dull,  provincial  society  compared  with  that  in  which 
Jeffrey  had  been  an  ornament  for  years !  Still,  most 
of  Ticknor's  comments  are  worthy  of  notice;  much 
may  be  forgiven  to  a  confirmed  Bostonian,  who  con 
siders  the  Bostonian  standard  as  the  highest  ever  at 
tained  or  ever  dreamed  of  by  mortal  man. 

Despite  the  air  of  tolerance  which  Mr.  Ticknor  dis 
plays  with  regard  to  Jeffrey  in  social  life,  it  may  not  be 
amiss  to  recall  that  in  a  circle  at  least  as  worthy  of  es 
teem  as  that  of  Boston,  he  was  received  without  ques 
tion.  He  was  always  welcome  in  the  refined  precincts 
of  Holland  House,  and  indeed  in  all  the  Whig  society 
of  London,  but  as  Mr.  Sanders  says  in  "The  Holland 
House  Circle,"  the  appearances  there  of  "the  hard 
working  Scotch  lawyer  and  vigorous,  if  obscurantist 
writer,  were  comparatively  rare  except  during  the  brief 
period  when  he  sat  in  the  Reform  Parliament."  In 
1811  his  London  campaign  included  a  large  dinner 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  149 

party  at  Holland  House,  where  the  hostess  was  "in 
great  gentleness  and  softness,"  and  where  he  failed  to 
appreciate  the  charm  of  Lady  Caroline  Lamb.  He 
seems  not  to  have  revisited  Holland  House  until  1840, 
when  he  had  "a  sweet  walk  under  the  cedars  and  in  the 
garden,  where  he  listened  in  vain  for  the  nightingales; 
though  Lord  Holland  and  Allen  challenged  them  to 
answer  by  divers  fat  and  asthmatical  whistles."  Jef 
frey  kept  up  his  acquaintance  with  Lady  Holland  in  her 
widowhood.*  That  lady  writes  of  him  to  Mrs.  Creevey 
in  1814,  "Do  not  be  surprised  at  receiving  a  visit  from 
that  very  dear  little  man,  who  has  the  best  heart  and 
temper,  although  the  authors  of  the  day  consider  him 
as  their  greatest  scourge.  *  *  *  You  will  think 
as  much  of  his  acquaintance,  as  he  is  full  of  wit,  anec 
dote  and  lively  sallies. "f 

IV. 

His  devotion  to  his  family  was  one  of  his  most 
charming  traits.  In  1815  he  took  up  his  country  resi 
dence  at  Craigcrook,  three  miles  northwest  of  Edin 
burgh.  Moore,  visiting  him  there  in  1825,  says: 

"Jeffrey  cannot  bear  to  stir  without  his  wife  and 
child;  requires  something  living  and  breathing  near 
him  and  is  miserable  when  alone." 

Craigcrook  had  been  the  home  of  Constable,  and 
his  son,  Thomas  Constable,  quotes  a  letter  from  Jef 
frey  to  his  father,  written  August  25,  1814,  to  show 
"the  unfailing  consideration  and  the  liberal  kindness 
that  were  Mr.  Jeffrey's  eminent  characteristics,"  offer 
ing,  although  he  could  not  use  the  place  for  some  con- 


*The  Holland  House  Circle.     257.     London,  1908. 
fCreevey  Papers.     I,  205. 


1 50  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

siderable  time,  to  pay  for  it  at  any  time  or  to  grant  any 
moderate  accommodation  in  money  if  any  exigency  in 
Constable's  affairs  required  it.  He  also  gives  another 
letter  to  illustrate  Jeffrey's  liberality.  By  some  care 
lessness,  there  had  been  delay  in  paying  for  an  article 
in  the  Review.  Jeffrey  wrote  to  Constable : 

uHere,  by  God's  grace,  is  Mr.  L.'s  honorarium. 
Pray  let  it  be  sent  off  instantly  to  him,  at  Longman's 
&  Co.,  and  desire  them  to  pay  him  or  offer  him  ten 
guineas  for  the  delay  and  disappointment.  I  mulct 
myself  of  this  fine.  *  *  *  I  deserve  this  for  my 
negligence,  and  besides  it  is  right  that  the  Review  and 
its  management  should  not  be  liable  to  the  imputation 
of  shabbiness,  even  from  the  shabby." 

Two  letters  from  Jeffrey  to  Hazlitt,  written  in  1818, 
are  given  by  Constable,  relating  to  a  proposed  suit  at 
law  which  Hazlitt  wished  to  begin  against  Blackwood's 
Magazine,  which  are  too  long  for  full  quotation,  but 
which  show  distinctly  "the  generous,  yet  wise  and 
honest  nature  of  the  writer."* 

In  one  of  these  letters  he  says: 

UI  am  concerned  to  find  your  health  is  not  as  good  as 
it  should  be,  and  that  you  would  take  more  care  of 
it  if  your  finances  were  in  better  order.  We  can 
not  let  a  man  of  genius  suffer  in  this  way,  and  I  hope 
you  are  in  no  serious  danger.  I  take  the  liberty  of  en 
closing  £100,  a  great  part  of  which  I  shall  owe  you  in 
a  few  weeks,  and  the  rest  you  shall  pay  me  back  in  re 
views  whenever  you  can  do  so  without  putting  your 
self  to  any  uneasiness.  If  you  really  want  another 
£100  tell  me  plainly  and  it  shall  be  heartily  at  your  ser 


vice." 


One  morning  he  received  a  letter  from  Hazlitt,  say- 


*Archibald    Constable     and    his    Literary    Correspondence 
(i873). 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  151 

ing,  "I  am  dying;  can  you  send  me  £10  and  so  con 
summate  your  many  kindnesses  to  me?"  Jeffrey  sent 
a  check  for  £50,  but  whether  it  saved  Hazlitt's  life  I 
am  unable  to  discover. 

The  house  in  Moray  Place,  then  the  new  part  of 
Edinburgh,  looked  out  on  the  Forth  on  one  side  and  to 
a  green  garden  on  the  other.  Macaulay,  no  doubt  in 
tending  to  confer  upon  it  the  highest  badge  of  dis 
tinction  which  an  Englishman  can  bestow  upon  a  dwell 
ing-place,  pronounced  it  to  be  "really  equal  to  the 
houses  in  Grosvenor  Square."  Macaulay  stopped  with 
him  there  in  1828,  and  wrote  to  his  mother:* 

"In  one  thing,  as  far  as  I  have  observed,  he  is  always 
the  same;  and  that  is  the  warmth  of  his  domestic  af 
fections.  Neither  Mr.  Wilberforce  nor  my  uncle 
Babington  comes  up  to  him  in  this  respect.  The  flow 
of  his  kindness  is  quite  inexhaustible.  Not  five  min 
utes  pass  without  some  fond  expression  or  caressing 
gesture  to  his  wife  or  his  daughter.  He  has  fitted  up 
a  study  for  himself,  but  he  never  goes  into  it.  Law 
papers,  reviews,  whatever  he  has  to  write,  he  writes 
in  the  drawing  room  or  in  his  wife's  boudoir.  When  he 
goes  to  other  parts  of  the  country  on  a  retainer,  he 
takes  them  in  the  carriage  with  him.  I  do  not  wonder 
that  he  should  be  a  good  husband;  for  his  wife  is  a 
very  amiable  woman.  But  I  was  surprised  to  see  a 
man  so  keen  and  sarcastic,  so  much  of  a  scoffer,  pour 
ing  himself  out  with  such  simplicity  and  tenderness  in 
all  sorts  of  affectionate  nonsense." 

On  July  2,  1829,  he  was  unanimously  elected  Dean 
of  the  Faculty  of  Advocates,  a  position  of  honor.  His 
opinion  was  that  the  "head  of  a  great  law  corporation" 
should  not  "continue  to  be  the  conductor  of  what  might 
be  fairly  enough  represented  as  in  many  respects  a  party 


^Trevelyan's  Macaulay.     I.      143    (Am.   Edn.). 


152  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

journal."  So  he  withdrew  from  the  management  of 
the  Edinburgh  Review.  The  number  for  June,  1829, 
was  the  last  one  edited  by  him,  and  thereafter  he  con 
tributed  to  the  magazine  not  more  than  five  or  six  arti 
cles. 

A  few  years  later  his  friend  Cockburn  urged  him 
in  vain  to  undertake  some  work  of  original  composi 
tion,  but  he  could  not  be  persuaded.  In  reply  to  Cock- 
burn  he  wrote,  on  August  28,  1835: 

"I  have  been  delighting  myself  with  Mackintosh. 
I  only  got  the  book  two  days  ago  and  have  done  noth 
ing  but  read  it  ever  since.  The  richness  of  his  mind 
intoxicates  me.  And  yet  do  you  not  think  he  would 
have  been  a  happier  man,  and  quite  as  useful  and  re 
spectable,  if  he  had  not  fancied  it  a  duty  to  write  a 
great  book?  And  is  not  this  question  an  answer  to 
your  exhortation  to  me  to  write  a  little  one?  I  have 
no  sense  of  duty  that  way,  and  feel  that  the  only  sure 
or  even  probable  result  of  the  attempt  would  be  hours 
and^  days  of  anxiety,  and  unwholesome  toil,  and  a 
closing  scene  of  mortification." 

Of  his  two  hundred  contributions  to  the  Edinburgh, 
seventy-nine  were  selected  for  publication  in  book  form, 
in  1843;  and  a  second  edition,  of  three  volumes,  was 
issued  five  years  later.  These  essays  are  not  read 
now  as  are  those  of  Macaulay,  Hazlitt,  Carlyle,  or 
Mackintosh;  because,  while  they  have  a  certain  charm 
and  brightness,  they  possess  no  lasting  qualities  of 
style  or  of  substance.  They  seem  to  be  too  fluent.  As 
Dr.  Samuel  McChord  Crothers  said  recently  at  Prince 
ton — and  he  found  it  worth  repeating  in  his  interesting 
paper  on  the  Autocrat  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for 
August,  1909: 

"The    writer    who    is    usually    fluent    should    take 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  153 

warning  from  the  instructions  which  accompany  his 
fountain  pen:  'when  this  pen  flows  too  freely  it  is  a 
sign  that  it  is  nearly  empty  and  should  be  filled'." 

They  seem  to  be  wanting  in  depth  and  solidity.  An 
American  writer  well  says: 

uHe  was  French  in  his  literary  aptitudes  and  quali 
ties;  never  heavy:  touching  things  with  a  feather's 
point,  yet  touching  them  none  the  less  surely." 

But  touching  things  with  a  feather's  point,  however 
surely,  leaves  but  a  slight  impression  and  time  effaces 
it  without  mercy.  Yet  it  has  also  been  said  of  him 
that  he  "with  his  clear,  legal  mind,  his  stabbing  and 
brilliant  manner  of  expression,  his  sarcasm,  cold  and 
sharp-edged  as  a  Toledo  blade,  unfortunately  only  too 
capable  of  wounding  too  deeply — won  the  position  of 
the  greatest  English  critic  of  all  time  and  of  the  most 
eminent  Scottish  lawyer  of  the  day— achieving  the 
highest  honors  open  to  the  advocates  of  Edinburgh."* 
It  is  the  fate  of  men  like  him  to  be  overestimated  by 
their  contemporaries  and  underrated  by  those  who  come 
after  them. 

He  wrote  for  the  Edinburgh  a  long  review  of  Ali 
son's  Essays  on  Taste,  which,  in  1816,  he  used  for 
the  article  on  Beauty  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica. 
This  appeared  later  as  a  small  volume. 

His  letters  were  always  delightful;  those  to  the 
American  relatives  of  his  wife,  describing  her  new 
home  life,  are  admirable.  He  wrote  often  to  Mrs. 
Waddington — Georgiana  Port,  grand-niece  of  Mrs. 
Delany,— and  in  some  of  his  letters  to  her  he  speaks 
quite  frankly  on  literary  matters.  In  1812  he  writes : 


*Curwen.     History  of  Booksellers.     117. 


154  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

'As  for  Alison,  its  review,  which  you  call  abuse,  is 
the  best  I  ever  wrote  on  a  matter  of  free  speculation, 
and  Burke  and  Price  are  both  wrong.  This  is  one  of 
the  few  things  I  am  sure  about,  and  I  really  have  a 
strong  desire  to  convert  you  to  the  right  path.  For 
Madame  de  Stael,  I  have  never  seen  her  L'Allemagne 
yet,  and  never  asked  for  it.  You  see  what  a  savage 
[  am.  Moreover,  I  do  not  greatly  admire  her,  and 
I  do  not  tolerate  idolatry.  Corinne  is  clever,  and 
upon  the  strength  of  your  recommendation  I  shall  get 
the  other  immediately  and  review  it  candidly,  if  I 
find  anything  to  say  about  it.  *  *  *  There  are 
some  wild  poems  published  here  by  a  lad  of  the  name 
of  Wilson  [The  Isle  of  Palms  was  published  early  in 
1812],  a  seraph  of  the  Lake  School,  and  very  amiable. 
Lord  Byron  has  also  published  a  quarto  of  a  strange 
sort  of  gloomy,  misanthropical  poetry*— but  power 
ful  and  vigorous.  I  have  thoughts  of  reviewing 
both." 

In  1814,  answering  Mrs.  Waddington's  request  to 
review  Madame  D'Arblay's  latest  book — she  was  no 
longer  the  great  Fanny  Burney  and  had  lost  the  art 
which  made  Johnson  and  Burke  sit  up  all  night  to  read 
Evelina — he  writes: 

"I  don't  know  what  to  say  to  you  about  the  Wan 
derer.  The  cry  is  pretty  general  against  it,  and 
among  judicious  and  good  people  as  well  as  others. 
There  is  no  disguising  the  fact,  and  I  am  afraid  there 
is  only  one  way  of  accounting  for  it,  not  that  the  judges 
are— but  that  the  work  is  bad.  If  a  popular  work— 
I  mean  a  work  intended  to  please  and  instruct  general 
readers— is  generally  disliked,  how  can  it  be  a  good 
work?  There  is  no  way  of  getting  over  that.  Yet 
you  must  know  that  I  like  the  book  better  than  any 
body  I  meet  with  here  — and  better  than  anybody  al 
most  that  I  have  heard  of  but  you.  I  think  it  has 

*The  first  two  cantos  of  Childe  Harold. 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  155 

great  faults,  but  I  do  not  think  it  very  much  inferior 
to  her  earlier  works,  the  faults  of  which  seem  to  be 
forgotten  in  order  to  contrast  their  excellence  with  the 
faults  of  this,  which  is  worse  written  than  they  are, 
and  a  little  more  diffuse,  but  has  the  same  merits  of 
brilliant  coloring,  decided  character,  and  occasional 
elegance.  Now  I  can't  tell  whether  I  shall  review  it 
or  not,  nor  can  I  promise  to  speak  of  it  as  you  do,  if  I 
should.  Gently  and  favorably  I  certainly  shall  speak, 
because  I  have  the  highest  veneration  for  the  per 
sonal  character  of  the  author;  but  I  must  speak  what 
I  think.  I  do  not  think  it  quite  pretty  in  her  not  to  say 
a  word  in  that  long,  foolish  preface,  of  Miss  Edge- 
worth,  of  Madame  de  Stael,  and  to  praise  herself  so 
directly.  The  last  may  be  partly  simplicity  of  char 
acter;  the  first  looks  petty." 

It  was  not  until  February,  1815,  that  the  partly- 
promised  review  appeared,  mainly  a  discussion  of  the 
general  subject  of  "novels  of  manners."  As  to  the 
book  itself,  he  calls  attention  to  the  absurdities  of  the 
plot  observing  "that  in  the  conduct  of  a  story  she  never 
excelled,  while  her  characters  are  equally  superficial 
and  confined."  "We  are  sorry,"  he  concludes,  "to  speak 
so  disadvantageously  of  the  work  of  so  excellent  and 
favorite  a  writer;  and  the  more  so  as  we  perceive  no 
decay  of  talent,  but  only  a  perversion  of  it."*  Most 
of  us  would  think  that  he  was  too  gentle  in  dealing 
with  the  stupid  story,  whose  style  Macaulay  described 
as  "a  barbarous  patois"  a  sort  of  "broken  Johnsonese," 
and  one  marvels  that  it  could  have  been  written  by  the 
author  of  the  Diary,  which  ranks  with  that  of  Pepys, 
among  the  best  in  the  language. 

The  second  volume  of  Cockburn's  Life  is  made  up 
entirely  of  letters.  They  are  far  more  interesting  than 


'Side-Lights  on  the  Georgian  Period:    George  Paston,  48. 


156  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

the  Life  itself,  which  is  a  stupid  affair,  containing  long 
accounts  of  men  who  happened  to  be  friends  and  ac 
quaintances  of  Jeffrey  and  of  the  biographer,  but  who 
might  have  been  dismissed  with  a  mere  reference.  It 
is  not  divided  into  chapters  and,  worst  of  all,  it  has 
no  index.  Some  original  unpublished  letters  are  in 
my  possession.  From  the  letter  to  his  sister  I  have 
already  quoted.  Most  of  them  are  to  John  Richard 
son,  an  eminent  Scottish  solicitor,  of  whom  Jeffrey  was 
very  fond.  Unfortunately  the  chirography  is  so  atro 
cious  that  it  almost  defies  translation.  Of  his  wretched 
scrawl  Lady  Holland  says  in  her  Memoirs  of  Sydney 
Smith : 

"My  father  wrote  to  him,  on  receiving  one  of  his 
letters,  'My  dear  Jeffrey:— We  are  much  obliged  by 
your  letter,  but  should  be  still  more  so  were  it  fegible. 
I  have  tried  to  read  it  from  left  to  right,  and  Mrs. 
Sydney  from  right  to  left,  and  we  neither  of  us  can 
decipher  a  single  word  of  it.'  ' 

In  one  of  these  letters,  dated  November  10,  1818, 
he  mentions  the  recent  death  of  Romilly  by  suicide, 
and  says : 

"It  is  a  tremendous  revelation,  this  of  Romilly's 
death,  and  yet  I  cannot  help  considering  it  as  rather 
an  heroic  ending." 

The  rest  is  undecipherable— unless  by  some  expert  in 
Assyrian  inscriptions.  In  another,  written  from  Edin 
burgh  on  February  8,  1825,  he  reveals  his  kindly  senti 
ments  in  regard  to  Thomas  Campbell.  He  says : 

"My  dear  Richardson:— Altho'  the  new  No.  of 
the  Review  will  be  out  within  ten  days,  I  am  tempted 
to  gratify  Campbell's  natural  impatience  to  know  how 
we  have  treated  him,  by  sending  him  a  separate  copy 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  157 

of  my  article  on  his  new  volume,*  and  not  being  sure 
of  his  address,  I  take  the  liberty  of  enclosing  it  to  you. 
You  may  perhaps  like  to  take  a  look  of  it  in  passing, 
and  think  this  privilege  a  sufficient  indemnification  for 
the  double  postage  to  which  it  will  subject  you,  if  not, 
you  must  put  it  to  my  account.  You  will  see  I  have 
treated  him  kindly— indeed  I  should  not  have  the 
heart,  I  am  afraid,  to  treat  him  otherwise,  even  if  I 
thought  he  deserved  it.  But  I  really  think,  in  sub 
stance,  all  I  have  said  of  him,  tho'  I  might  have  ex 
pressed  it  less  warmly  and  added  other  thoughts.  Give 
my  love  to  him  and  tell  me  how  near  I  have  come  to 
pleasing  him.  You  see  I  have  done  him  the  honor 
of  placing  him  at  the  fore  of  the  No.  and  consequently 
I  have  had  this  sheet  by  me  for  a  fortnight.  But  I 
have  forborne  sending  it  for  fear  of  its  contents  find 
ing  their  way  into  some  newspaper  or  magazine  — 
against  the  possibility  of  which  I  beg  you  to  caution 
the  said  Editorial  pest,  and  to  secure  obedience  to  this 
caution  I  would  recommend  his  burning  the  said  sheet 
as  soon  as  he  has  sufficiently  perused  it.  *  *  * 
We  are  a  little  anxious  about  the  Judicature  Bill. 
When  you  hear  any  certain  tidings  of  it,  do  let  us 
know.  What  is  the  worshipful  the  Solr.  doing  up 
among  you?  What  trim  is  Brougham  in?  What  is 
to  be  done  with  Ireland?  We  have  a  strong  paper 
on  that  subject  in  this  No,  which  I  am  anxious  to  have 
out  before  decisive  measures  are  adopted." 

Another  letter  is  to  Talfourd,  and  it  is  an  additional 
disclosure  of  his  generous  disposition: 

EDINBURGH,  9  May,   1836. 

My  dear ^ Serjeant—  I  wrote  to  Spring  Ri'ce  the  day 
after  I  received  your  new  supplication  for  poor  Leigh 
Hunt,  and  entreated  him  to  confer  favorably  with  you 
on  the  subject.  ^ Yesterday  I  had  his  answer,  saying 
that  he  had  nothing  whatever  to  say  as  to  selecting  or 

^Campbell's  Theodoric,  and  Other  Poems:  No.  82,  Arti 
cle  I. 


158  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

suggesting  who  should  have  pensions,  and  that  this 
was  strictly  and  entirely  in  the  department  of  Lord 
Melbourne,  to  whom,  however,  he  promised  to  com 
municate  what  I  had  written.  I  have  been  making 
an  application  very  nearly  to  the  same  effect  with  your 
friend,  Dr.  Bowring,  with  whom  I  suppose  you  are 
in  communication,  and  whom  I  beg  you  will  assure  of 
my  most  hearty  concurrence  in  so  kind  a  suit.  He 
seems  to  think  Lord  M.  well  disposed  and  if  you  get 
up  a  tolerable  show  of  conservative  auxiliaries,  I  shall 
have  good  hopes  of  success.  I  shall  be  most  happy 
to  hear  of  your  progress,  and  to  lend  any  little  aid 
in  my  power.  I  have  still  a  pleasing  presentiment 
that  I  am  to  have  the  gratification  of  seeing  you  here 
in  the  course  of  the  summer.  In  the  meantime  pray 
do  not  forget  me. 

Always  very  faithfully  yours, 

F.  JEFFREY. 
To   Mr.  Serjeant  Talfourd,  &c.,   &c. 

Almost  every  one  who  refers  to  Macaulay's  early 
life  quotes  what  Jeffrey  wrote  to  him  in  acknowledg 
ing  the  receipt  of  the  manuscript  of  the  essay  on  Mil 
ton,  which  appeared  in  the  Edinburgh  in  August,  1825  : 

"The  more  I  think  the  less  I  can  conceive  where 
you  picked  up  that  style." 

It  was  a  hasty  remark,  no  doubt,  and  not  meant  to 
be  embalmed  for  posterity;  for  Jeffrey  surely  knew  that 
"style"  is  the  result  either  of  an  inborn  power  of  using 
language  in  a  particular  way  or  of  care,  study  and  wide 
reading;  it  is  never  "picked  up." 

It  was  easy  for  him  to  detect  the  signs  of  promise 
in  a  young  contributor.  He  recognized  Carlyle's  merit 
at  once,  and  the  record  of  his  relations  with  the  Carlyles 
is  an  honorable  one.  He  soon  became  their  friend  and 
benefactor,  and  for  several  years  the  articles  in  the 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  159 

Review  were  one  of  the  main  sources  of  their  income. 
It  was  difficult  for  Carlyle  to  be  grateful  to  any  one; 
but  he  came  very  near  to  gratitude  towards  Jeffrey. 
In  the  "Two  Note  Books,"  he  says  (1830),  "Francis 
Jeffrey  the  other  week  offered  me  a  hundred  a  year, 
having  learned  that  this  sum  met  my  yearly  wants; 
he  did  it  neatly  enough,  and  I  had  no  doubt  of  his 
sincerity."  In  his  "Reminiscences"  he  writes: 

"Jeffrey  about  this  time  generously  offered  to  con 
fer  on  me  an  annuity  of  £100." 

Charles  Eliot  Norton,  in  his  footnote  to  this  passage, 
refers  to  Carlyle's  acute  analysis  of  his  own  and  Jeff 
rey's  feelings  in  the  matter,  and  adds  that  Carlyle 
hardly  does  justice  to  the  simplicity  of  Jeffrey's  kind 
intention.  Carlyle  refused  to  receive  the  gift,  and  per 
haps  he  was  right. 

Froude  gives  us  the  story  of  the  proposed  annunity 
quite  fully.  He  says: 

"Jeffrey's  anxiety  to  be  of  use  did  not  end  in  recom 
mendations  to  Napier.  He  knew  how  the  Carlyles 
were  situated  in  money  matters.  He  knew  that  they 
were  poor,  and  that  their  poverty  had  risen  from  a 
voluntary  surrender  of  means  which  were  properly 
their  own,  but  which  they  would  not  touch  while  Mrs. 
Welsh  was  alive.  He  knew  also  that  Carlyle  had 
educated  and  was  still  supporting,  his  brother  out  of 
his  own  slender  earnings.  He  saw,  as  he  supposed,  a 
man  of  real  brilliancy  and  genius  weighed  down  and 
prevented  from  doing  justice  to  himself  by  a  drudg 
ery  which  deprived  him  of  the  use  of  his  more  com 
manding  talents;  and  with  a  generosity  the  merit  of 
which  was  only  exceeded  by  the  delicacy  with  which 
the  offer  was  made,  he  proposed  that  Carlyle  should 
accept  a  small  annuity  from  him.  Here  again  I  re 
gret  that  I  am  forbidden  to  print  the  admirable  letter 


160  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

in  which  Jeffrey  conveyed  his  desire,  to  which  Carlyle 
in  his  own  mention  of  this  transaction  has  done  but 
scanty  justice.  The  whole  matter,  he  said,  should  be 
an  entire  secret  between  them.  He  would  tell  no  one 
—not  even  his  wife.  He  bade  Carlyle  remember  that 
he,  too,  would  have  been  richer  if  he  had  not  been 
himself  a  giver  where  there  was  less  demand  upon  his 
liberality.  He  ought  not  to  wish  for  a  monopoly  of 
generosity,  and  if  he  was  really  a  religious  man  he 
must  do  as  he  would  be  done  to;  nor,  he  added,  would 
he  have  made  the  offer  did  he  not  feel  that  in  similar 
circumstances  he  would  have  freely  accepted  it  him 
self.  To  show  his  confidence  he  enclosed  50  I.,  which 
he  expected  Carlyle  to  keep,  and  desired  only  to  hear 
in  reply  that  they  had  both  done  right." 

Later  in  the  Note  Books  Carlyle  records  a  visit 
of  the  Jeffreys  and  thus  delivers  himself: 

Very  good  and  interesting  beyond  wont  was  our 
worthy  Dean.  He  is  growing  old,  and  seems  dispir 
ited  and  partly  unhappy."  [Jeffrey  was  fifty-seven  and 
could  not  have  been  remarkably  aged.]  "Jeffrey's 
essential  talent  sometimes  seems  to  me  to  have  been 
that  of  a  Goldoni ;  some  comic  Dramatist,  not  with 
out  a  touch  of  true  lyrical  pathos.  He  is  the  best 
mimic  (in  the  lowest  and  highest  senses)  I  ever  saw. 

*  *      *      He  is  one  of  the  most  loving  men  alive; 
has  a  true  kindness,  not  of  blood  and  habit  only,  but 
of  soul  and  spirit.     He  cannot  do  without  being  loved. 

*  *      *      I  have  heard  him  say:     'If  Folly  were  the 
happiest,  I  would  be  a  fool.'    Yet  his  daily  Life  belies 
this   doctrine,    and  says:      'Tho'   Goodness  were   the 
most  wretched,   I  would  be  Good.'      In  conversation 
he  is  brilliant  (or  rather  sparkling)   lively,  kind,  will 
ing  either  to  speak  or  listen,  and  above  all  men  I  have 
ever  seen,  ready  and  copious.     On  the  whole,  exceed 
ingly  pleasant  in  light  talk.     Yet  alas  light,  light,  too 
light!      He   will   talk   of   nothing   earnestly,   tho'    his 
look  sometimes  betrays  an  earnest  feeling.      *      *      * 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  161 

He  is  not  a  strong  man  in  any  shape;  but  nimble  and 
tough.  He  stands  midway  between  God  and  Mam 
mon;  and  his  preaching  thro'  life  has  been  an  attempt 
to  reconcile  these.  Hence  his  popularity;  a  thing 
easily  accountable  when  one  looks  at  the  world  and  at 
him;  but  little  honourable  to  either.  Literature! 
Poetry!  except  by  active  indestructible  Instinct,  which 
he  has  never  dared  to  avow,  yet  being  a  true  Poet  (in 
his  way  could  never  eradicate) — he  knows  not  what 
they  mean.  A  true  Newspaper  Critic,  on  the  great 
scale;  no  priest,  but  a  Concionator!  Yet  on  the  whole 
he  is  about  the  best  man  I  ever  saw.  Sometimes  I 
think  he  will  abjure  the  Devil  (if  he  live)  and  be 
come  a  pure  Light.  Already  he  is  a  most  tricksy 
dainty  beautiful  little  spirit;  I  have  seen  gleams  on  the 
face  and  eyes  of  the  man  that  let  you  look  into  a  high 
er  country.  God  bless  him!" 

And  this  is  the  tribute  paid  by  one  who  never  did 
to  anybody  an  act  of  disinterested  kindness,  an  alleged 
philosopher  who  \vas  always  finding  fault  but  was  of  no 
practical  value  to  the  world,  to  a  man  who  was  always 
doing  good,  a  kindly,  helpful  man,  whose  life  was  love 
and  who  neither  attained  nor  wished  to  attain  that  emi 
nence  as  "a  pure  light"  which  manifests  itself  by  the 
perpetual  scolding  of  others. 

Jane  Welsh  Carlyle  partially  atones  for  the  dubious 
praise  accorded  by  her  surly  spouse.  "Lord  Jeffrey" 
she  writes  "came  unexpectedly  while  the  Count 
[D'Orsay]  was  here.  What  a  difference!  The  prince 
of  critics,  and  the  prince  of  dandies.  How  washed  out 
the  beautiful  dandiacal  face  looked  beside  that  little 
clever  old  man's.  The  large  blue  dandiacal  eyes,  you 
would  have  said,  had  never  contemplated  anything  more 
than  the  reflection  of  the  handsome  personage  they 
pertained  to,  in  a  looking  glass;  while  the  dark,  pene 
trating  eyes  of  the  other  had  been  taking  note  of  most 


1 62  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

things  in  God's  universe,  even  seeing  a  good  way  into 
mill  stones."*  Another  worthy  female — Harriet  Marti- 
neau,  who  sneered  at  almost  every  one — thought  Jeffrey 
"one  of  the  most  egregious  flatterers  of  vain  women  in 
general."  He  had  evidently  flattered  the  lady  atro 
ciously.  In  her  Autobiography,  she  expands  her  view, 
saying : 

"Whatever  there  might  be  of  artificial  in  Jeffrey's 
manners — of  a  set  'company  state  of  mind'  and  mode 
of  conversation,— there  was  a  warm  heart  under 
neath,  and  an  ingenuousness  which  added  captivation 
to  his  intellectual  graces.  He  could  be  absurd  enough 
in  his  devotion  to  a  clever  woman;  and  he  could  be 
highly  culpable  in  drawing  out  the  vanity  of  a  vain 
one,  and  then  comically  making  game  of  it;  but  his 
better  nature  was  always  within  call;  and  his  generos 
ity  was  unimpeachable  in  every  other  respect." 

With  regard  to  Jeffrey's  behavior  towards  women, 
Carlyle  in  his  Reminiscences,  has  some  pleasant  things 
to  say: 

"He  had  much  the  habit  of  flirting  about  with  wo 
men,  especially  pretty  women,  much  more  the  both 
pretty  and  clever;  all  in  a  weakish,  mostly  dramatic, 
and  wholly  theoretic  way  (his  age  now  fifty  gone)  ; 
would  daintily  kiss  their  hands  in  bidding  good  morn 
ing,  offer  his  due  homage,  as  he  phrased  it;  trip  about, 
half  like  a  lap-dog,  half  like  a  human  adorer,  with 
speeches  pretty  and  witty,  always  of  trifling  import. 
I  have  known  some  women  (not  the  prettiest)  take 
offence  at  it,  and  awkwardly  draw  themselves  up,  but 
without  the  least  putting  him  out.  The  most  took  it 
quietly,  and  found  an  entertainment  to  themselves  in 
cleverly  answering  it,  as  he  did  in  partly  offering  it; 
pertly,  yet,  with  something  of  real  reverence,  and  al- 


*  Letters  and  Memorials  of  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle.      (1883.) 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  163 

ways  in  a  dexterous,  light  way,  *  *  *  An  airy 
environment  of  this  kind  was,  whenever  possible,  a 
coveted  charm  in  Jeffrey's  way  of  life." 

Carlyle  in  his  Reminiscences  has  left  these  records 
of  his  impressions  of  the  man  who  so  befriended  him  in 
the  hour  of  need: 

"I  used  to  find  in  him  a  finer  talent  than  any  he  has 
evidenced  in  writing.  This  was  chiefly  when  he  got  to 
speak  Scotch,  and  gave  me  anecdotes  of  old  Scotch 
Braxfield  and  vernacular  (often  enough  but  not  al 
ways  cynical)  curiosities  of  that  type,  which  he  did 
with  a  greatness  of  gusto  quite  peculiar  to  the  topic, 
with  a  fine  and  deep  sense  of  humor,  of  real  comic 
mirth,  much  beyond  what  was  noticeable  in  him  other 
wise,  not  to  speak  of  the  perfection  of  the  mimicry, 
which  itself  was  something.  I  used  to  think  to  my 
self,  'Here  is  a  man  whom  they  have  kneaded  into  the 
shape  of  an  Edinburgh  reviewer,  and  clothed  the  soul 
of  in  Whig  formulas  and  blue  and  yellow;  but  he 
might  have  been  a  beautiful  Goldoni  too,  or  some 
thing  better  in  that  kind,  and  have  given  us  comedies 
and  aerial  pictures  true  and  poetic  of  human  life  in 
a  far  other  way.'  There  was  something  of  Voltaire 
in  him,  something  even  in  bodily  features;  those 
bright-beaming,  swift  and  piercing  hazel  eyes,  with 
their  accompaniment  of  rapid,  keen  expression  in  the 
other  lineaments  of  face,  resembled  one's  notion  of 
Voltaire;  and  in  the  voice,  too,  there  was  a  fine  half- 
plangent  kind  of  metallic  ringing  tone  which  used  to 
remind  me  of  what  I  fancied  Voltaire's  voice  might 
have  been;  'voix  sombre  et  majesteuse,'  Duvernet 
calls  it." 

V. 

They  must  have  been  greatly  addicted  to  talk  for 
talk's  sake  in  those  days.  There  appears  to  have  been 
far  more  interchange  of  words  among  the  men  of  let- 


1 64  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

ters  than  there  has  been  among  the  writers  of  recent 
generations.  We  read  so  much  in  all  their  intermin 
able  memoirs  and  in  their  voluminous  correspondence, 
about  "talk,"  and  the  merits  of  the  talkers— talk  at 
clubs,  at  dinners,  in  the  salons,— talk  morning,  noon 
and  night— that  it  is  puzzling  to  find  out  how  they 
ever  found  time  to  work.  It  must  be  owned  that  we 
are  not  favored  with  many  records  of  what  was  actu 
ally  said,  the  few  volumes  of  "Table  Talk"  being 
manifestly  edited  for  publication  so  as  to  take  all  the 
spontaneity  out  of  them;  and  the  "jests"  and  "anec 
dotes"  which  have  been  preserved  to  us  seem  mostly 
flat,  stale  and  unprofitable,  although  there  are  a  few 
deserving  immortality,  such  as  the  one  about  Jeffrey's 
damning  the  North  Pole  and  the  resulting  accusation 
by  Sydney  Smith  of  using  disrespectful  language  about 
the  equator.  An  example  of  the  dreariness  of  some 
of  these  talks  is  afforded  by  the  discussion  between 
Moore,  Rogers  and  Lord  Holland  and  later  between 
Moore  and  John  Wilson  about  the  wonderful  joke 
of  Sheridan  delivered  to  Tarleton,  and  Lord  John 
Russell's  ludicrous  note  thereon  in  his  edition  of 
Moore's  Memoirs.  Moore  expresses  rather  a  gloomy 
opinion  of  this  joke  or  bon  mot.  Lord  Russell  ap 
pends  this  portentous  remark: 

"Sheridan's  joke  to  Tarleton.  Any  one  might  think 
the  wit  poor  (although  I  do  not  agree  with  them)  but 
the  joke  is  clear  enough.  'I  was  on  a  horse,  and 
now  I'm  on  an  elephant,'  /'.  e.,  'I  was  high  above 
others,  but  now  I  am  much  higher.'  'You  were  on  an 
ass,  and  now  you're  on  a  mule,'  said  Sheridan:  i.  e., 
'You  were  stupid  and  now  you're  obstinate.'  For 
quick  repartee  in  conversation,  there  are  few  things 
better.  J.  R." 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  165 

There  are  luckily  no  such  scintillations  of  wit 
charged  against  Jeffrey,  but  the  tradition  concerning 
him  gives  him  the  highest  reputation  as  an  entertain 
ing  talker.  He  was  not  addicted  to  the  telling  of 
anecdotes  or  "stories,"  but  was  "bubbling  over  with 
engaging  book-lore  and  poetic  hypotheses,  and  eager 
to  put  them  into  those  beautiful  shapes  of  language 
which  come — as  easily  as  water  flows — to  his  pen  or 
to  his  tongue.  *  *  *  One  did  not,  after  con 
versing  with  him,  recall  great  special  aptness  of  re 
mark  or  of  epithet,  so  much  as  the  charmingly  even 
flow  of  apposite  and  illustrative  language — void  of  all 
extravagances  and  of  all  wickedness  too."*  His  bio- 
grarapher  says  of  his  conversation: 

"The  listener's  pleasure  was  enhanced  by  the  per 
sonal  littleness  of  the  speaker.  A  larger  man  could 
scarcely  have  thrown  off  Jeffrey's  conversational  flow 
ers  without  exposing  himself  to  ridicule.  But  the  live 
liness  of  the  deep  thoughts,  and  the  flow  of  the  bright 
expressions  that  animated  his  talk,  seemed  so  natural 
and  appropriate  to  the  figure  that  uttered  them,  that 
they  were  heard  with  something  of  the  delight  with 
which  die  slenderness  of  the  trembling  throat  and  the 
quivering  of  the  wings  make  us  enjoy  the  strength 
and  clearness  of  the  notes  of  a  little  bird."t 

This  description  produces  rather  a  belittling  effect, 
reminding  one  of  a  canary  bird  in  a  cage,  and  it  may 
be  doubted  if  the  subject  of  it  would  have  relished 
it  greatly. 

Haydon,  writing  to  Miss  Mitford  from  Edinburgh 
in  1820,  is  not  as  enthusiastic  as  some  others,  and  re 
marks  that 


*Donald  G.  Mitchell,  English  Letters  and  Kings,  93. 
fLord  Cockburn :  Life,  I,  364. 


1 66  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

"Jeffrey  has  a  singular  expression,  poignant,  bitter, 
piercing — as  if  his  countenance  never  lighted  up  but  at 
the  perception  of  some  weakness  in  human  nature. 
Whatever  your  praise  to  Jeffrey,  he  directly  chuckles 
out  some  error  that  you  did  not  perceive.  Whatever 
your  praise  to  Scott,  he  joins  heartily  with  yourself, 
and  directs  your  attention  to  some  additional  beauty. 
The  face  of  Scott  is  the  expression  of  a  man  whose 
great  pleasure  has  been  to  shake  Nature  by  the  hand; 
while  to  point  at  her  with  his  finger,  has  certainly, 
from  his  expression,  been  the  chief  enjoyment  of  Jef 
frey."* 

Richard  Harris  Barham  records  that  Moore  spoke 
of  Jeffrey  as  an  excellent  judge,  and  remarked  on  the 
difference  between  his  conversation  and  that  of  Scott; 
Scott  was  all  anecdote,  without  any  intermediate  mat 
ter,  all  fact,  while  Jeffrey  had  a  profusion  of  ideas  all 
worked  up  into  the  highest  flight  of  fancy,  but  no 
fact.  Moore  preferred  Scott's  talk,  as  he  got  tired 
of  Jeffrey's. 

One  reason  why  different  people  had  opposing  opin 
ions  in  regard  to  Jeffrey's  personality  and  conversa 
tion,  is  given  by  Macaulay  in  the  letter  to  his  mother 
from  which  a  quotation  has  already  been  given, — a 
letter  written  with  the  power  and  vividness  of  expres 
sion  which  marked  not  only  his  published  work  but 
even  his  private  correspondence.  He  said: 

"I  will  commence  with  Jeffrey.  I  had  almost  for 
gotten  his  person;  and,  indeed,  I  should  not  wonder 
if  even  now  I  were  to  forget  it  again.  He  has  twen 
ty  faces,  almost  as  much  unlike  each  other  as  my 
father's  to  Mr.  Wilberforce's,  and  infinitely  more  un 
like  to  each  other  than  those  of  near  relations  often 


*B.  R.  Haydon  and  His  Friends,     in. 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  167 

are,  infinitely  more  unlike,  for  example,  than  those  of 
the  two  Grants.  When  absolutely  quiescent,  reading 
a  paper,  or  hearing  a  conversation  in  which  he  takes 
no  interest,  his  countenance  shows  no  indication  what 
ever  of  intellectual  superiority  of  any  kind.  But  as 
soon  as  he  is  interested,  and  opens  his  eyes  upon  you, 
the  change  is  like  magic.  There  is  a  flash  in  his  glance, 
a  violent  contortion  in  his  frown,  an  exquisite  humor 
in  his  sneer,  and  a  sweetness  and  brilliancy  in  his  smile, 
beyond  anything  that  I  ever  witnessed.  A  person  who 
had  seen  him  in  only  one  state  would  not  know  him  if 
he  saw  him  in  another.  For  he  has  not,  like  Broug 
ham,  marked  features  which  in  all  moods  of  mind  re 
main  unaltered.  The  mere  outline  of  his  face  is  insig 
nificant.  The  expression  is  everything,  and  such 
power  and  variety  of  expression  I  never  saw  in  any 
human  countenance,  not  even  in  that  of  the  most  cele 
brated  actors.  I  can  conceive  that  Garrick  may  have 
been  like  him.  I  have  seen  several  pictures  of  Gar- 
rick,  none  resembling  another,  and  I  have  heard  Han 
nah  More  speak  of  the  extraordinary  variety  of  coun 
tenance  by  which  he  was  distinguished,  and  of  the  un 
equalled  radiance  and  penetration  of  his  eye.  The 
voice  and  delivery  of  Jeffrey  resemble  his  face.  He 
possesses  considerable  power  of  mimicry,  and  rarely 
tells  a  story  without  imitating  several  different  accents. 
His  familiar  tone,  his  declamatory  tone,  and  his  pa 
thetic  tone  are  quite  different  things.  Sometimes 
Scotch  predominates  in  his  pronunciation;  sometimes 
it  is  imperceptible.  Sometimes  his  utterance  is  snap 
pish  and  quick  to  the  last  degree;  sometimes  it  is  re 
markable  for  rotundity  and  mellowness.  I  can  easily 
conceive  that  two  people  who  had  seem  him  on  differ 
ent  days  might  dispute  about  him  as  the  travelers  in 
the  fable  disputed  about  the  chameleon." 

Mrs.  Grant  of  Laggan,  usually  styled  uthe  cele 
brated,"  writes  of  a  visit  she  received  from  Scott  and 
Jeffrey: 


1 68  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

"You  would  think  that  the  body  of  each  was  formed 
to  lodge  the  soul  of  the  other.  Jeffrey  looks  the  poet 
all  over:  the  ardent  eye,  the  nervous  agitation,  the 
visibly  quick  perceptions  keep  one's  attention  awake 
in  the  expectation  of  flashes  of  genius;  nor  is  that  ex 
pectation  disappointed,  for  his  conversation  is  in  a 
high  degree  fluent  and  animated.  Walter  Scott  has 
not  a  gleam  of  poetic  fire  in  his  countenance,  which 
merely  suggests  the  idea  of  plain  good  sense." 

She  confessed  that  she  was  unable  to  refrain  from 
liking  "the  archcritic"  in  spite  of  his  manifold  literary 
offenses. 

Macaulay  thought  his  conversation  very  much  .like 
his  countenance  and  his  voice,  of  immense  variety, 
sometimes  plain  and  unpretending,  sometimes  brilliant 
and  rhetorical;  a  shrewd  observer,  fastidious,  and 
while  not  altogether  free  from  affectation  himself,  hav 
ing  a  peculiar  loathing  for  it  in  other  people. 

"He  has  a  particular  contempt"  Macaulay  adds  "in 
which  I  most  heartily  concur  with  him,  for  the  fadaises 
of  blue-stocking  literature,  for  the  mutual  flatteries  of 
coteries,  the  handing  about  of  vers  de  societe,  the  al 
bums,  the  conversaziones,  and  all  the  other  nauseous 
trickeries  of  the  Sewards,  Hayleys,  and  Sothebys.  I 
am  not  quite  sure  that  he  has  escaped  the  opposite  ex 
treme,  and  that  he  is  not  a  little  too  desirous  to  ap 
pear  rather  a  man  of  the  world,  an  active  lawyer,  or 
an  easy,  careless  gentleman,  than  a  distinguished 
writer." 

Macaulay  thought  him  to  be  hypochondriac,  but 
that  he  was  "on  the  whole,  the  youngest  looking  man 
of  fifty  that  I  know,  at  least  when  he  was  animated." 
In  1828  when  this  was  written,  Jeffrey  was  fifty-five. 

Of  his  conversation,  Hazlitt  says  in  his  Spirit  of 
the  Age: 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  169 

"There  is  no  subject  on  which  he  is  not  au  fait:  no 
company  in  which  he  is  not  ready  to  scatter  his  pearls 
for  sport.  *  *  *  His  only  difficulty  seems  to  be, 
not  to  speak,  but  to  be  silent.  *  *  *  He  is  never 
absurd,  nor  has  he  any  favorite  points  which  he  is 
always  bringing  forward.  It  cannot  be  denied  that 
there  is  something  bordering  on  petulance  of  manner, 
but  it  is  of  that  least  offensive  kind  which  may  be 
accounted  for  from  merit  and  from  success,  and  im 
plies  no  exclusive  pretensions  nor  the  least  particle  of 
ill-will  to  others.  On  the  contrary,  Mr.  Jeffrey  is 
profuse  of  his  encomiums  and  admiration  of  others, 
but  still  with  a  certain  reservation  of  a  right  to  differ 
or  to  blame.  He  cannot  rest  on  one  side  of  a  ques 
tion;  he  is  obliged  by  a  mercurial  habit  and  disposi 
tion,  to  vary  his  point  of  view.  If  he  is  ever  tedious, 
it  is  from  an  excess  of  liveliness;  he  oppresses  from 
a  sense  of  airy  lightness.  He  is  always  setting  out  on 
a  fresh  scent;  there  are  always  relays  of  topics.  5 
New  causes  are  called;  he  holds  a  brief  in  his  hand 
for  every  possible  question.  This  is  a  fault.  Mr. 
Jeffrey  is  not  obtrusive,  is  not  impatient  of  opposition, 
is  not  unwilling  to  be  interrupted;  but  what  is  said  by 
another  seems  to  make  no  impression  on  him;  he  is 
bound  to  dispute,  to  answer  it,  as  if  he  was  in  Court, 
or  as  if  he  were  in  a  paltry  Debating  Society,  where 
young  beginners  were  trying  their  hands. 
He  cannot  help  cross-examining  a  witness,  or  stating 
the  adverse  view  of  the  question.  He  listens  not  to 
judge,  but  to  reply.  In  consequence  of  this,  you  can 
as  little  tell  the  impression  your  observations  make  on 
him  as  what  weight  to  assign  to  his." 

Most  of  us  have  met  men  who  are  like  Jeffrey  in 
these  respects;  usually  they  are  the  bright,  clever,  self- 
centered  men,  who  consider  themselves  to  be  on  exhi 
bition.  In  talking  with  them,  one  can  see  at  a  glance 
that  they  are  thinking  not  of  what  you  are  saying  to 
them  but  of  what  they  will  say  when  you  have  paused. 


EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

They  are  entertaining  persons,  but  not  always  agree 
able  in  conversation. 
Hazlitt  further  says: 

"Mr.  Jeffrey  shines  in  mixed  company;  he  is  not 
good  in  a  tete-a-tete.  You  can  only  show  your  wis 
dom  and  your  wit  in  general  society;  but  in  private 
your  follies  or  your  weaknesses  are  not  the  least  inter 
esting  topics;  and  our  critic  has  neither  any  of  his  own 
to  confess,  nor  does  he  take  delight  in  hearing  those 
of  others.  Indeed,  in  Scotland  generally  the  display 
of  personal  character,  the  indulging  your  whims  and 
humors  in  the  presence  of  a  friend  is  not  much  en 
couraged—every  one  there  is  looked  upon  in  the  light 
of  a  machine,  of  a  collection  of  topics.  *  *  * 
The  accomplished  and  ingenious  person  of  whom  we 
speak,  has  been  a  little  infected  by  the  tone  of  his 
countrymen — he  is  too  didactic,  too  pugnacious,  too 
full  of  electrical  shocks,  too  much  like  a  voltaic  bat 
tery,  and  reposes  too  little  on  his  own  excellent  good 
sense,  his  own  love  of  ease,  his  cordial  frankness  of 
temper  and  unaffected  candor.  He  ought  to  have  be 
longed  to  us !" 

Lockhart  is  not  quite  as  censorious  as  Hazlitt  is,  but 
then  Lockhart  had  a  more  amiable  disposition.  He 
says,  in  "Peter's  Letters  to  his  Kinsfolk": 

"I  have  never,  I  believe,  heard  so  many  ideas  thrown 
out  by  any  man  in  so  short  a  space  of  time,  and  ap 
parently  with  such  entire  negation  of  exertion.  His 
conversation  acted  upon  me  like  the  first  delightful 
hour  after  taking  opium.  The  thoughts  he  scattered 
so  readily  about  him  (his  words,  rapid  and  wonder 
fully  rapid  as  they  are,  appearing  to  be  continually 
panting  after  his  conceptions) —his  thoughts,  I  say, 
were  at  once  so  striking,  and  so  just,  that  they  took 
in  succession  entire  possession  of  my  imagination,  and 
yet  with  so  felicitous  a  tact  did  he  forbear  from  ex- 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  171 

pressing  any  one  of  these  too  freely,  that  the  reason 
was  always  kept  in  a  pleasing  kind  of  excitement,  by 
the  endeavor  more  thoroughly  to  examine  their  bear 
ings.  *  *  *  I  have  heard  some  men  display 
more  profoundness  of  reflection,  and  others  of  a  much 
greater  command  of  the  conversational  picturesque— 
but  I  never  before  witnessed  anything  to  be  compared 
with  the  blending  together  of  apparently  little  con 
sistent  powers  in  the  whole  strain  of  his  discourse. 
Such  a  power,  in  the  first  place,  of  throwing  away  at 
once  every  useless  part  of  the  idea  to  be  discussed, 
and  then  such  a  happy  redundancy  of  imagination  to 
present  the  essential  and  reserved  part  in  its  every 
possible  relation,  and  point  of  view, — and  all  this  con 
nected  with  so  much  of  the  plain  savoir  faire  of  actual 
existence,  and  such  a  thorough  scorn  of  mystification, 
it  is  really  a  very  wonderful  intellectual  coalition." 

In  the  Reminiscences,  Carlyle  describes  a  scene  in 
his  own  home  at  Craigenputtoch. 

"One  of  the  nights  there  *  *  *  encouraged 
possibly  by  the  presence  of  poor  James  Anderson,  an 
ingenious,  simple,  youngish  man,  and  our  nearest  gen 
tleman  neighbor,  Jeffrey  in  the  drawing  room  was 
cleverer,  brighter,  and  more  amusing  than  I  ever  saw 
him  elsewhere.  We  had  got  to  talk  of  public  speak 
ing,  of  which  Jeffrey  had  plenty  to  say,  and  found 
Anderson  and  all  of  us  ready  enough  to  hear.  Be 
fore  long  he  fell  into  mimicking  of  public  speakers, 
men  unknown,  perhaps  imaginary  generic  specimens; 
and  did  it  with  such  a  felicity,  flowing  readiness,  in 
genuity,  and  perfection  of  imitation  as  I  never  saw 
equalled,  and  had  not  given  him  credit  for  before. 
Our  cozy  little  drawing  room,  bright-shining,  hidden 
in  the  lowly  wilderness,  how  beautiful  it  looked  to  us, 
become  suddenly  as  it  were  a  Temple  of  the  Muses! 
The  little  man  strutted  about  full  of  electric  fire,  with 
attitudes,  with  gesticulations,  still  more  with  winged 
words,  often  broken-winged,  amid  our  admiring  laugh- 


172  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

ter;  gave  us  the  windy,  grandiloquent  specimen,  the 
ponderous  stupid,  the  airy  ditto,  various  specimens,  as 
the  talk,  chiefly  his  own,  spontaneously  suggested,  of 
which  there  was  a  little  preparatory  interstice  between 
each  two.  And  the  mimicry  was  so  complete,  you 
would  have  said  not  his  mind  only,  but  his  very  body 
became  the  specimens,  his  face  filled  with  the  expres 
sion  represented,  and  his  little  figure  seeming  to  grow 
gigantic  if  the  personage  required  it.  At  length  he 
gave  us  the  abstruse  costive  specimen,  which  had  a 
meaning  and  no  utterance  for  it,  but  went  about  clam 
bering,  stumbling,  as  on  a  path  of  loose  bowlders,  and 
ended  in  total  down-break,  amid  peals  of  the  heartiest 
laughter  from  us  all.  This  of  the  aerial  little  sprite 
standing  there  in  fatal  collapse,  with  the  brightest  of 
eyes  sternly  gazing  into  utter  nothingness  and  dumb 
ness,  was  one  of  the  most  tickling  and  genially  ludic 
rous  things  I  ever  saw,  and  it  prettily  winded  up  our 
little  drama." 


VI. 


Robert  Pearse  Gillies,  that  odd,  unlucky,  obscure 
aspirant  for  honor  as  a  poet  and  an  editor,  has  left  in 
his  book  of  recollections  an  account  of  Jeffrey  which 
exaggerates  certain  traits  and  must  have  been  written 
as  of  a  time  when  the  "little  great  man,"  as  Hazlitt 
calls  him,  was  still  young  and  perhaps  a  bachelor.  He 
says: 

"Among  the  public  characters  who  were  always  to 
be  met  with  at  our  balls  and  routs  in  those  days,  out 
of  sight  and  comparison  the  most  distinguished  was 
Mr.  Jeffrey.  To  every  one  who  appreciated  his  tal 
ents,  the  wonder  was  how  he  could  reconcile  his  mode 
of  life  in  this  respect  with  his  literary  and  professional 
engagement.  But  that  he  did  so  was  very  certain. 
He  seemed  the  gayest  of  the  gay.  He  was  invited 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  173 

everywhere,  tried  to  make  his  appearance  everywhere, 
and  on  all  such  occasions  his  popularity  (if  possible) 
increased.  *  *  To  all  appearances  he  cared 

not  a  rush  about  habits  of  consecutive  application. 
No  one  could  guess  what  portion  of  his  day  was  ap 
propriated  to  literary  tasks  nor  indeed  could  have 
imagined  that  he  really  had  any  such  tasks  on  hand. 
In  the  mornings,  from  nine  till  two,  he  was  on  parade 
and  professionally  employed  in  the  Parliament  House. 
Thereafter,  till  dinner  time,  weather  permitting,  he 
walked  out  or  promenaded  on  horseback.  Never  did 
it  happen  for  a  single  day  during  the  season,  that  he 
had  not  divers  invitations  both  for  dinner  and  even 
ing  parties.  Of  the  former,  it  is  needless  to  say>  he 
could  accept  only  one  per  diem;  but  it  was  quite  pos 
sible  during  the  evening,  to  migrate  from  one  rout  to 
another,  and  this  he  often  did,  winding  up,  of  course, 
where  the  supper  party  was  most  attractive  and  con 
genial." 

Referring  to  Dugald  Stewart  and  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
their  quiet  homes  and  orderly  libraries,  he  continues : 

"Never  did  any  fox-hunter  or  wild  roue  trample 
more  disdainfully  on  all  such  notions  than  Mr.  Jef 
frey!  He  had  third-rate  apartments  in  a  'land'  situ 
ated  in  Queen  Street,  where  exclusive  of  the  necessary 
law  books  and  the  very  newest  publications,  his  entire 
library  consisted  of  a  few  motley  tatterdemalion  vol 
umes,  for  all  the  world  likest  to  a  set  of  worn  out 
school  books,  and  such  perhaps  they  really  were. 
Truly  there  appeared  no  great  charm  in  that  home  to 
render  it  an  object  of  attachment  and  affection.  Its 
arrangements  were  not  symmetrical  nor  indicated  much 
attention  to  comfort.  The  looking-glass  over  the 
chimney  piece  remains  yet  in  my  remembrance,  be 
cause  within  and  under  its  tarnished  frame  were  lo 
cated  a  preposterous  multitude  of  visiting  cards  and 
notes  of  invitation  which  showered  on  him  from  all 
quarters,  'thick  as  the  leaves  in  VallambrosaV 


174  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

Jeffrey  did  not  occupy  a  ''third-rate  apartment  in 
Queen  Street"  after  his  marriage,  and  it  is  quite  ab 
surd  to  found  a  judgment  upon  a  man's  whole  life,  on 
a  mode  of  living  as  a  young  bachelor.  But  even  Gil 
lies, — a  little  envious — cannot  withhold  a  slight  tribu- 
ute  of  praise.  He  goes  on  to  say: 

"From  all  this  and  other  traits  which  I  might  ad 
duce,  who  could  have  imagined  that  the  gay,  young 
barrister  was  in  truth  the  most  adventurous  and  suc 
cessful  student  in  town,  the  very  man  of  all  our 
Athenian  world  who  was  most  ready  and  able  to  grap 
ple  with  a  difficult  question,  to  torture  and  twist  it  by 
the  process  of  analysis  and  reasoning,  till  gleams  of 
light  the  most  unexpected  were  thrown  upon  the  sub 
ject,  and  who  when  his  reader  or  hearer  thought  that 
no  more  could  possibly  be  done,  would  start  again  de 
novo,  not  merely  with  unabated  but  increased  vivacity, 
adding  more  and  more  of  patient  argument  and  bril 
liant  illustration,  till  at  last  a  so-called  essay  (alias 
review)  came  forth,  comprising  materials  that  might 
serve  as  texts  for  future  volumes. 

"This  was  not  comprehensible  yet  was  nevertheless 
true— when  did  he  elaborate  his  papers?  There  was 
only  one  way  of  accounting  for  it — the  old  suggestion 
as  applied  in  the  case  of  Chatterton,  that  he  did  not 
sleep,  but  could  betake  himself  to  work  with  undi- 
minished  zeal  when  the  day's  work  of  the  world  was 
done.  It  would  be  rather  too  hypothetical  to  suppose 
that  he  possessed  a  duality  of  mind,  and  could  persist 
in  arranging  silently  a  critical  argument  with  one, 
whilst  with  the  other  he  managed  a  nonsensical  con 
versation  at  the  supper  table.  However,  there  was 
one  leading  peculiarity  in  Jeffrey's  character,  which 
perhaps  rendered  time  of  some  value  in  his  case,  that 
would  otherwise  have  been  lost;  I  mean  the  grace  and 
alacrity  wherewith,  if  opportunity  offered,  he  could 
turn  ordinary  conversation  to  account.  If  the  most 
commonplace  remark  was  tendered  on  a  subject  in 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  175 

itself  interesting,  he  would  rapidly  reply  with  an  il 
lustration  as  original  as  it  was  unexpected.  And  if 
his  superficial  neighbor  luckily  ventured  to  differ  from 
him  in  opinion,  then  he  would  rouse  and  present  the 
matter  in  a  hundred  new  lights  (if  needful)  so  as  to 
carry  his  point.  And  this  argument  taking  its  rise, 
perhaps,  from  a  mere  platitude  in  the  course  of  ordin 
ary  table-talk,  or  during  a  walk  to  Corstorphin  Hill, 
might  dwell  on  his  remembrance  and  if  committed  af 
terwards  to  writing,  serve  for  the  commencement  of  a 
leading  article." 

These  diffuse  and  somewhat  rambling  remarks  of 
Gillies  have  been  given  so  fully  because  they  afford  a 
portrait  of  the  real  Jeffrey  as  he  appeared  to  his  con 
temporaries  in  his  younger  days,  and  throw  much  light 
on  his  methods  as  they  were  before  he  attained  celeb 
rity  outside  of  the  narrow  walls  of  the  Scotch  "Athens." 
These  methods  were  never  wholly  abandoned,  and  the 
result  has  been  that  what  he  wrote  often  conveys  an 
impression  that  he  has  not  penetrated  to  the  core  of  his 
subject,  but  is  playing  around  and  about  it  with  no  set 
tled  convictions  and  no  wish  to  have  any  such  convic 
tions  concerning  it.  Naturally  writings  of  this  kind 
have  no  permanence  of  interest,  and  soon  become  part 
of  the  lumber  of  the  past,  read  only  by  some  curious 
burrower  in  literary  history.  But  the  man,  Jeffrey, 
will  be  read  of  and  remembered  although  his  once- 
dreaded  reviews  may  have  gone  the  way  of  most  of  the 
ephemeral  pages  of  the  magazine. 

Hazlitt  certainly  knew  him  well,  and  had  abundant 
occasion  to  experience  the  benefit  of  his  generous  friend 
ship.  In  the  Spirit  of  the  Age,  Hazlitt  further  says  of 
him: 

"The  severest  of  critics,  as  he  has  been  sometimes 
termed,  is  the  best  natured  of  men.  Whatever  there 


176  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

may  be  of  wavering  or  indecision  in  Mr.  Jeffrey's  rea 
soning,  or  of  harshness  in  his  critical  decisions,  in  his 
disposition  there  is  nothing  but  simplicity  and  kind 
ness.  He  is  a  person  that  no  one  knows  without  es 
teeming,  and  who  both  in  his  public  connections  and 
private  friendships,  shows  the  same  manly  upright 
ness  and  unbiassed  independence  of  spirit.  At  a  dis 
tance,  in  his  writings,  or  even  in  his  manner,  there  may 
be  something  to  excite  a  little  uneasiness  and  appre 
hension;  in  his  conduct,  there  is  nothing  to  except 
against.  He  is  a  person  of  strict  integrity  himself, 
without  pretence  or  affectation;  and  knows  how  to  re 
spect  this  quality  in  others,  without  prudery  or  intol 
erance.  He  can  censure  a  friend  or  a  stranger,  and 
serve  him  effectually  at  the  same  time.  He  expresses 
his  disapprobation,  but  not  as  an  excuse  for  closing  up 
the  avenues  of  his  liberality.  He  is  a  Scotchman  with 
out  one  particle  of  hypocrisy,  of  cant,  of  servility,  or 
selfishness  in  his  composition.  He  has  not  been  spoiled 
by  fortune — has  not  been  tempted  by  power — is  firm 
without  violence,  friendly  without  weakness — a  critic 
and  even-tempered,  a  casuist  and  an  honest  man— and 
amidst  the  toils  of  his  profession  and  the  distractions 
of  the  world,  retains  the  gayety,  the  unpretending 
carelessness,  and  simplicity  of  youth." 

In   Macvey  Napier's   Correspondence    (London, 
1879)   he  quotes  Macaulay  as  saying,  in   1843: 

"When  I  compare  him  with  Sydney  and  myself,  I 
feel,  with  humility  perfectly  sincere,  that  his  range  is 
immeasurably  wider  than  ours.  And  this  is  only  as  a 
writer.  But  he  is  not  only  a  writer;  he  has  been  a 
great  advocate,  and  he  is  a  great  judge.  Take  him 
all  in  all,  I  think  him  more  nearly  an  universal  genius 
than  any  man  of  our  time.  *  *  *  Jeffrey  has 
tried  nothing  in  which  he  has  not  succeeded,  except 
Parliamentary  speaking;  and  there  he  obtained  what 
to  any  other  man  would  have  been  great  success,  and 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  i77 

disappointed  his  hearers  only  because  their  expecta 
tions  were  extravagant." 

Doctor  John  Brown,  in  Horae  Subsecivae,  speaks 
of 

''Jeffrey,  whom  flattery,  success,  and  himself  cannot 
spoil,  or  taint  that  sweet,  generous  nature— keen,  in 
stant,  unsparing,  and  true  as  a  rapier;  the  most  pains 
taking  and  honest  working  of  all  clever  men." 


VII 

We  have  observed  that  in  his  earlier  years  at  the 
bar  he  had  but  little  practice.     His  lack  of  early  suc 
cess  has  been  ascribed  partly  to  his  Whig  opinions; 
but  they  could  not  have  done  him  any  serious  harm. 
It  has  also  been  said  to  be  due  to  the  general  preju 
dice    against   literary   lawyers.      This    prejudice    may 
have  had  something  to  do  with  it;  for  clients  are  in 
clined  to  believe  that  their  lawyer  should  not  think  of 
anything  but  their  affairs  and  their  cases  and  resent 
devotion  to  any  shrines  but  their  own.     The  law  is 
proverbially  a  jealous  mistress,  but  clients   are  even 
more  jealous  masters.     When  a  man  has  won  a  repu 
tation  as  a  lawyer  he  may  perhaps  by  way  of  digres 
sion,  a  holiday  excursion,  dabble  in  literature;  but  not 
till  then.     If  he  makes  a  business  of  literary  work,  he 
must  give  up  hope  of  eminence  in  the  field  of  juris 
prudence.     After  he  has  gained   a  name  in  his  pro 
fession,   his   dabblings   are   never   regarded   seriously. 
Still,  Jeffrey  began  to  rise  as  a  lawyer  after  he  be 
came  known  as  an  editor  and  a  reviewer.     He  was 
at  his  best  before  juries,   as  may  well  be  supposed, 


178  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

for  jurymen  care  very  little  about  profundities  and  a 
good  deal  about  things  that  shine  brightly  on  the  sur 
face. 

The  Monthly  Magazine  said  of  him,  as  a  lawyer: 

"When  once  he  had  made  himself  master  of  a  case 
and  its  bearings,  he  was  always  ready  to  debate  it, 
even  at  a  moment's  warning,  however  heterogeneous 
the  subject  to  which  he  had  been  tasking  his  faculties 
the  moment  before.  This  might  be  owing  to  a  habit 
which  he  had  in  previous  conversations  with  the  party 
or  his  agent,  to  ply  them  with  all  the  arguments  that 
could  be  brought  against  them.  Often  have  we  known 
an  honest  countryman,  perplexed  by  his  objections,  re 
monstrate  with  his  attorney  for  having  encouraged 
him  to  proceed  with  a  hopeless  case,  or  for  having 
employed  a  pleader  of  so  desponding  a  temperament; 
and  immediately  thereafter  have  we  seen  his  honest 
face  grow  momentarily  broader  and  broader,  brighter 
and  brighter,  as  Jeffrey,  on  stepping  to  the  bar,  pro 
ceeded  to  demonstrate  his  right  in  a  train  of  the  closest 
and  most  irrefragable  reasoning." 

One  is  amused  and  not  displeased  at  the  fact  that, 
as  he  found  trouble  in  adjusting  his  forensic  wig  over  his 
black,  bushy  hair,  he  never  wore  a  wig  in  court  and  was 
for  many  years  the  only  lawyer  at  the  Scottish  bar  who 
dared  to  dispense  with  that  ornament.  Despite  this  de 
fiance  of  professional  custom,  he  became  a  leader  in  the 
courts.  He  did  excellent  work  in  the  trial  of  Maclaren 
and  Bird  for  sedition  in  1817,  and  again  in  sedition 
cases  at  Stirling  in  1820,  although  he  lost  his  causes. 
In  1821  he  was  made  Lord  Rector  of  the  University  of 
Glasgow.  When  the  Whigs  came  into  power  in  1830 
he  was  made  Lord  Advocate.  Carlyle  writes  in  his 
Note  Book  about  that  time: 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  179 

"Jeffrey  is  Lord  Advocate  and  M.  P.  Sobbed  and 
shrieked  at  taking  office,  like  a  bride  going  to  be  mar 
ried." 

He  may  have  shown  some  emotion  but  his  cross- 
grained  friend,  who  was  given  to  thinking  and  writing 
in  italics  and  with  over-abundant  exclamation  points, 
probably  exaggerated  it.  Jeffrey  resigned  his  deanship 
and  he  set  to  work  to  get  the  necessary  seat  in  Parlia 
ment.  Cockburn  notes  that  the  income  of  his  new  of 
fice  was  about  £3000  a  year,  but  between  December, 
1830  and  May,  1832,  he  spent  about  £10,000  in  par 
liamentary  contests.  Elected  for  the  Forfarshire 
burghs,  he  lost  his  seat  through  some  defect  in  the  pro 
ceedings,  and  was  then  chosen,  April  6,  1831,  for  Mai- 
ton.  He  failed  of  election  for  Edinburgh  and  was  in 
June  again  elected  for  Malton.  After  the  Reform 
Bill  was  passed  he  stood  again  for  Edinburgh,  and 
was  elected  December  19,  1832.  He  did  not  achieve 
much  success  in  Parliament,  for  he  began  too  late.  He 
was  never  an  orator,  although  in  what  he  said  he  was 
"always  clean-cut,  sensible,  picturesque,  flowing  smooth 
ly,  but  rather  on  the  surface  of  things  than  into  their 
depths."  Mackintosh*  spoke  favorably  of  the  speech 
on  reform  which  he  delivered  on  March  4,  1831,  and 
it  was  published  "at  the  special  request  of  government." 
He  made  other  speeches  which  were  well  regarded,  but 
they  were  rather  essays  than  speeches. 

Brougham  in  his  Memoirs  says,  however: 

"It  was  the  custom  to  say  he  had  failed  in  Parlia 
ment.  I  recollect  meeting  Sir  Robert  Peel  the  night 
he  made  his  first  speech;  and  in  answer  to  my  inquiry 


'Memoirs,  1 1 :  479. 


1 8o  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

as  to  its  success,  he  said  that  Jeffrey  had  fired  over 
their  heads,  and  was  too  clever  for  his  audience." 

If  one  may  judge  of  the  House  of  Commons  of  that 
day  by  the  House  of  the  present,  it  could  not  have 
been  difficult  to  accomplish  that  feat. 

He  was  hampered  by  a  distressing  infirmity,  suffer 
ing  greatly  from  an  affection  of  the  trachea,  and  was 
obliged  to  undergo  an  operation  in  October,  1831.  He 
grew  weary  of  his  tasks,  and  while  he  preserved  his 
good  temper  and  conciliatory  ways,  he  found  much  of 
the  work  quite  distasteful. 

Hazlitt  in  his  Spirit  of  the  Age  gives  a  description 
of  Jeffrey's  style  of  speaking.  He  says : 

"He  makes  fewer  blots  in  addressing  an  audience 
than  any  one  we  remember  to  have  heard.  There  is 
not  a  hairbreadth  space  between  any  two  of  his 
words,  nor  is  there  a  single  expression  either  ill- 
chosen  or  out  of  place.  He  speaks  without  stopping 
to  take  breath,  with  ease,  with  point,  with  elegance, 
and  without  'spinning  the  thread  of  his  verbosity  finer 
than  the  staple  of  his  argument.'  He  may  be  said  to 
weave  words  into  any  shapes  he  pleases  for  use  or 
ornament,  as  the  glass-blower  moulds  the  vitreous  fluid 
with  his  breath,  and  his  sentences  shine  like  glass 
from  their  polished  smoothness,  and  are  equally  trans 
parent.  *  *  *  Whenever  the  Scotch  advocate 
has  appeared  at  the  bar  of  the  English  House  of 
Lords,  he  has  been  admired  by  those  who  were  in  the 
habit  of  attending  to  speeches  there,  as  having  the 
greatest  fluency  of  language  and  the  greatest  subtlety 
of  distinction  of  any  one  of  the  profession.  The  law- 
reporters  were  as  little  able  to  follow  him  from  the 
extreme  rapidity  of  his  utterance  as  from  the  tenuity 
and  evanescent  nature  of  his  reasoning." 

The  article  of  the  New  Monthly  Magazine,  (1831), 
says: 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  181 

"His  delivery  is  not  commanding — that,  his  figure 
forbids — but  it  is  fascinating.  He  rises,  settles  his 
gown  about  his  shoulders,  and  commences  in  a  low 
tone  of  voice.  For  the  first  two  or  three  sentences, 
he  seems  beating  about  for  ideas — words  there  are 
plenty.  But  he  soon  comes  upon  the  track.  With 
the  side  of  his  face  turned  towards  the  person  or  per 
sons  he  is  addressing,  he  fixes  his  serpent  eye  upon 
them  and  holds  them  fast.  At  one  time  he  leans  for 
ward  and  speaks  in  tones  as  harsh  as  the  grating  of 
an  earthenware  plate  upon  a  working  grindstone;  again 
he  stands  erect,  or  even  casts  himself  backward,  and 
without  any  sensible  motion  of  his  lips,  emits  a  continu 
ous  stream  of  most  melodious  voice." 

Lockhart  in  Peter's  Letters  to  his  Kinsfolk,  (1819), 
remarks  of  Jeffrey's  oratory: 

"I  have  told  you  in  a  former  letter  that  his  pronun 
ciation  is  wretched — it  is  a  mixture  of  provincial  Eng 
lish,  with  undignified  Scotch,  altogether  snappish  and 
offensive,  and  which  would  be  quite  sufficient  to  render 
the  elocution  of  a  more  ordinary  man  utterly  disgust 
ing;  but  the  flow  of  his  eloquence  is  so  overpoweringly 
rapid,  so  unweariedly  energetic,  so  entirely  unlike  every 
other  man's  mode  of  speaking,  that  the  pronunciation 
of  the  particular  words  is  quite  lost  to  one's  view,  in 
the  midst  of  that  continual  effort  which  is  required,  in 
order  to  make  the  understanding,  even  the  ear  of  the 
listener,  keep  pace  with  the  glowing  velocity  of  the 
declamation.  His  words  come  more  profusely  than 
words  ever  came  before,  and  yet  it  seems  as  if  they  were 
quite  unable  to  follow,  passibus  aequis,  the  still  more 
amazing  speed  of  his  thought.  You  sit,  while  minute 
follows  minute  uncounted  and  unheeded,  in  a  state  of 
painful  excitation,  as  if  you  were  in  a  room  overlighted 
with  gas,  or  close  under  the  crash  of  a  whole  pealing 
orchestra. 

"This  astonishing  fluency  and  vivacity,  if  possessed 
by  a  person  of  very  inferior  talents,  might  for  a  little 


1 82  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

be  sufficient  to  create  an  illusion  in  his  favor;  and  I 
have  heard  that  such  things  have  been.  But  the  more 
you  can  overcome  the  effect  of  Mr.  Jeffrey's  dazzling 
rapidity,  and  concentrate  your  attention  on  the  ideas 
embodied  with  such  supernatural  facility,  the  greater 
will  be  your  admiration.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive 
the  existence  of  a  more  fertile,  teeming  intellect.  The 
flood  of  his  illustration  seems  to  be  at  all  times  rioting 
up  to  the  very  brim — yet  he  commands  and  restrains  it 
with  equal  strength  and  skill;  or,  if  it  does  boil  over  for 
a  moment,  it  spreads  such  a  richness  all  around,  that  it 
is  impossible  to  find  fault  with  its  extravagance.  * 

*  *  If  he  be  not  the  most  delightful,  he  is  cer 
tainly  by  far  the  most  wonderful  of  speakers." 

James  Grant,  in  Random  Recollections,  referring 
to  Jeffrey's  first  speech  in  Parliament,  1831,  says: 

"The  amazing  rapidity  of  his  delivery  operated 
much  against  his  speech.  I  think  I  never  heard  a  per 
son,  either  in  or  out  of  the  House,  speak  so  fast  as  he 
did  on  that  occasion.  The  most  experienced  short-hand 
reporters  were  unable  to  follow  him.  *  Yet, 

notwithstanding  the  rapidity  with  which  Mr.  Jeffrey 
spoke  on  this  occasion,  he  never  so  much  as  faltered 
once,  nor  recalled  a  word  which  he  uttered  to  substi 
tute  one  more  suitable  for  it.  His  manner  *  *  * 
was  graceful,  but  it  wanted  variety.  His  voice  was 
clear  and  pleasant;  but  it  had  no  flexibility  in  its  into 
nations.  He  continued  and  ended  ..in,. .much  the  same 
tones  as  he  began.  The  same  monotony  characterized 
his  gesticulation." 

VIII 

Glad  to  be  relieved  of  parliamentary  drudgery,  he 
became  a  Lord  of  the  Sessions  in  May,  1834,  and 
after  a  farewell  dinner  had  been  given  to  him  by  the 
Scottish  members,  he  assumed  his  judicial  seat  on 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  183 

June  7,  1834,  and  thus  acquired  his  title  of  "Lord  Jef 
frey,"  for  he  never  reached  the  peerage.  He  usually 
passed  his  winters  in  Edinburgh,  and  his  summers  at 
Craigcrook,  visiting  London  in  the  spring.  In  the 
summers  he  occupied  himself  in  his  garden  and  in 
reading.  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  says: 

uHe  was  a  sloven  in  regard  to  books,  and  had  a 
'wretched  collection,'  though  in  a  'moment  of  infir 
mity'  he  joined  the  Bannatyne  Club  in  1826.  He  had 
been  one  of  the  founders  of  the  'Friday  Club,'  in 
1803,  which  endured  for  more  than  thirty  years." 

As  a  judge  he  gave  great  satisfaction,  showing  the 
same  qualities  of  tact,  quickness  and  accuracy  which 
marked  his  career  at  the  bar  and  in  the  world  of  let 
ters.  In  1841  he  had  a  serious  illness,  from  the  ef 
fects  of  which  he  never  entirely  recovered.  In  No 
vember,  1842,  he  became  a  member  of  the  first  divi 
sion  of  the  court,  where  he  had  three  associates  and 
where  the  opinions  were  oral.  Cockburn  asserts  that 
he  was  singularly  patient,  painstaking  and  candid. 
His  fault  was  over-volubility  and  mutability,  which 
led  him  to  interpose  a  'running  margin  of  questions, 
suppositions  and  comments'  throughout  the  argu 
ment.  But  his  urbanity  and  openness  of  mind  made 
him  exceedingly  popular,  especially  with  the  bar.* 
Some  men  are  so  constituted  mentally  that  they  are 
unable  to  comprehend  an  argument  except  by  inter 
rupting  the  counsel  and  satisfying  themselves  as  the 
hearing  proceeds,  in  regard  to  the  questions  which  oc 
cur  to  them  at  the  moment.  Such  judges  annoy  and 
disconcert  lawyers,  because  they  disturb  the  or 
derly  sequence  of  the  argument  and  their  fidgety 


*Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  xxix,  275. 


1 84  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

queries  bring  about  a  sort  of  medley,  without  form 
or  shape,  instead  of  a  well-arranged  presentation 
of  the  subject  under  consideration.  In  this  way 
time  is  often  wasted  and  real  injustice  done. 
All  sound  lawyers  welcome  questions  by  the 
court  arising  naturally  out  of  the  particular  mat 
ter  with  which  they  may  happen  to  be  dealing,  but 
it  is  otherwise  when  a  nimble  minded,  restless  judge 
insists  upon  darting  from  the  point  immediately  un 
der  consideration  to  some  remote  field,  which  is  to  be 
entered  upon  later.  The  judge  who  talks  too  much 
is  as  unsatisfactory  as  the  one  who  never  opens  his 
lips  and  listens  with  blank  stolidity.  Jeffrey's  per 
sonal  charm,  however,  endeared  him  to  all  who  prac 
tised  before  him. 

Many  of  his  contemporaries  dwell  upon  his  person 
ality,  his  appearance,  and  his  manners.  The  author 
of  the  paper  in  the  New  Monthly  Magazine  (1831), 
to  which  reference  has  been  made,  thus  describes 
him: 

"He  is  of  low  stature,  but  his  figure  is  elegant  and 
well  proportioned.  This  he  seems  to  be  aware  of  from 
the  assiduity  with  which  he  takes  care  that  his  little  per 
sonage  shall  always  be  set  out  to  the  best  advantage. 
The  continually  varying  expression  of  his  countenance 
renders  it  impossible  to  say  what  his  features  are.  * 

The  face  is  rather  elongated,  the  chin  de 
ficient,  the  mouth  well-formed,  with  a  mingled  expres 
sion  of  determination,  sentiment  and  arch-mockery;  the 
nose  is  slightly  curved.  *  *  *  The  brow  never 
presents  the  same  appearance  for  two  moments  succes 
sively;  it  is  now  smooth  and  unfurrowed,  lofty  and 
vaulted;  look  again,  and  the  skin  is  contracted  up 
wards  into  a  thousand  parallel  wrinkles,  offering  the 
semblance  of  a  'forehead  villainous  low.'  The  eye  is 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  185 

the  most  peculiar  feature  of  the  countenance ;  it  is  large 
and  sparkling,  but  with  a  want  of  transparency  that 
gives  it  the  appearance  of  a  heartless  enigma." 

Lockhart  says  of  him,  in  Peter's  Letters  to  his  Kins 
folk: 

"It  is  a  face  which  any  man  would  pass  without  ob 
servation  in  a  crowd,  because  it  is  small  and  swarthy, 
and  entirely  devoid  of  lofty  or  commanding  outlines — 
and  besides,  his  stature  is  so  low,  that  he  might  walk 
close  under  your  chin  or  mine  without  ever  catching  the 
eye  even  for  a  moment. 

"Mr.  Jeffrey  *  *  *  is  a  very  active-looking 
man,  with  an  appearance  of  extraordinary  vivacity  in 
all  his  motions  and  gestures.  His  face  is  one  which 
cannot  be  understood  at  a  single  look — perhaps  it  re 
quires,  as  it  certainly  invites,  a  long  and  anxious  scru 
tiny  before  it  lays  itself  open  to  the  gazer.  The  feat- 
tures  are  neither  handsome,  nor  even  very  defined  in 
their  outlines;  and  yet  the  effect  of  the  whole  is  as 
striking  as  any  arrangement  either  of  more  noble  or 
more  marked  features,  which  ever  came  under  my  view. 
The  forehead  is  very  singularly  shaped,  describing  in 
its  bend  from  side  to  side  a  larger  segment  of  a  circle 
than  is  at  all  common;  compressed  below  the  temples 
almost  as  much  as  Sterne's;  and  throwing  out  sinuses 
above  the  eyes,  of  an  extremely  bold  and  compact  struc 
ture.  The  hair  is  very  black  and  wiry,  standing  in  rag 
ged,  bristly  clumps  out  from  the  upper  part  of  his  head, 
but  lying  close  and  firm  lower  down,  especially  about  the 
ears.  Altogether,  it  is  picturesque,  and  adds  to  the 
effect  of  the  visage.  The  mouth  is  the  most  expres 
sive  part  of  his  face.  The  lips  are  very  fine,  but  they 
tremble  and  vibrate,  even  when  brought  close  together, 
in  such  a  way  as  to  give  the  idea  of  an  intense,  never- 
ceasing  play  of  mind.  There  is  a  delicate  kind  of  sneer 
almost  always  upon  them,  which  has  not  the  least  ap 
pearance  of  ill-temper  about  it,  but  seems  to  belong  en 
tirely  to  the  speculative  understanding  of  the  man. 


1 86  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

"I  have  said  that  the  mouth  is  the  most  expressive 
part  of  his  face — and,  in  one  sense,  this  is  the  truth,  for 
it  is  certainly  the  seat  of  all  its  rapid  and  transitory 
expression.  But  what  speaking  things  are  his  eyes ! 
They  disdain  to  be  agitated  by  those  lesser  emotions 
which  pass  over  the  lips;  they  reserve  their  fierce  and 
dark  energies  for  matters  of  more  moment;  once  kin 
dled  with  the  heat  of  any  passion,  how  they  beam, 
flash  upon  flash !  The  scintillation  of  a  star  is  not  more 
fervid.  Perhaps,  notwithstanding  this,  their  repose  is 
even  more  worthy  of  attention.  With  the  capacity  of 
emitting  such  a  flood  of  radiance,  they  seem  to  take  a 
pleasure  in  banishing  every  ray  from  their  black,  in 
scrutable,  glazed,  tarn-like  circles.  I  think  their  pre 
vailing  language  is,  after  all,  rather  a  melancholy  than 
a  merry  one — it  is,  at  least,  very  full  of  reflection.  Such 
is  a  faint  outline  of  this  countenance,  the  features  of 
which  (to  say  nothing  at  all  of  their  expression),  have, 
as  yet,  baffled  every  attempt  of  the  portrait  painters. 
A  sharp,  and  at  the  same  time,  very  deep- 
toned  voice  —  a  very  bad  pronunciation,  but  accompa 
nied  with  very  little  of  the  Scotch  accent— a  light  and 
careless  manner  exchanged  now  and  then  for  an  infinite 
variety  of  more  earnest  expression  and  address — this 
is  as  much  as  I  could  carry  away  from  my  first  visit.'* 

Dr.  John  Brown  in  his  Horae  Subsecivae  (Third 
Series,  Edinburgh,  1882)  said  of  Jeffrey's  mouth  that 
it  was  "mobile  and  yet  firm,  arch,  and  kind,  with  a 
beautiful  procacity  or  petulance  about  it,  that  you 
would  not  like  absent  in  him,  or  present  in  any  one  else." 

Robert  Tomes  in  My  College  Days  writes  of  him : 

"I  often  peeped  through  the  green  curtain  which 
hung  before  his  contracted  judicial  shell,  and  watched 
the  wondrous  little  man  unravelling,  in  his  quick,  im 
patient  way,  the  tangle  of  Scotch  law.  His  restless  per 
son  was  in  a  state  of  perpetual  movement;  his  eyes- 
turning  here,  there,  and  everywhere;  his  features  at 
constant  play;  his  forehead  rippling  in  quick  succes- 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  187 

sive  wrinkles  as  if  trying  to  throw  off  his  close-fitting 
judicial  wig,  which  seemed  to  grasp  his  diminutive  head 
painfully,  almost  down  to  his  eyebrows,  and  with  its 
great  stiff  curls  of  white  horse-hair  heavily  to  oppress 
him  with  its  weight.  His  arms,  too,  he  was  ever  mov 
ing  with  an  uneasy  action,  as  if  he  would  rid  himself  of 
the  incumbrance  of  his  official  robe  of  scarlet,  which 
covered  his  shoulders,  and  hung  in  loose  folds  from  his 
neck  to  his  wrists." 

Carlyle  in  his  Reminiscences  gives  a  vivid  pen-pic 
ture  of  him,  as  he  was  apt  to  do  when  he  dealt  with 
those  who  interested  him : 

"A  delicate,  attractive,  dainty  little  figure  as  he  mere 
ly  walked  about,  much  more  if  he  were  speaking,  un 
commonly  bright  black  eyes,  instinct  with  vivacity,  in 
telligence,  and  kindly  fire ;  round  brow,  delicate  oval 
face  full  of  rapid  expression,  figure  light,  nimble,  pret 
ty  though  so  small,  perhaps  hardly  five  feet  in  height. 
He  had  his  gown,  almost  never  any  wig,  wore  his 
black  hair  rather  closely  cropt;  I  have  seen  the  back 
part  of  it  jerk  suddenly  out  in  some  of  the  rapid  ex 
pressions  of  his  face,  and  knew  even  if  behind  him 
that  his  brow  was  then  puckered,  and  his  eyes  looking 
archly,  half  contemptously  out,  in  conformity  to  some 
conclusive  little  cut  his  tongue  was  giving." 

Elsewhere  Carlyle  says : 

"His  accent  was  *  *  *  singular,  but  it  was  by 
no  means  Scotch;  at  his  first  going  to  Oxford  (where 
he  did  not  stay  long)  he  had  peremptorily  crushed 
down  his  Scotch  (which  he  privately  had  in  store  in 
excellent  condition  to  the  very  end  of  his  life,  produci 
ble  with  highly  ludicrous  effect  on  occasion),  and  adopt 
ed  instead  a  strange,  swift,  sharp-sounding,  fitful  mo 
dulation,  part  of  it  pungent,  quasi-labrant,  other  parts 
of  it  cooing,  bantery,  lovingly  quizzical,  which  no 
charms  of  his  fine  ringing  voice  (metallic  tenor  of  sweet 
tone),  and  of  his  vivacious  rapid  looks,  and  pretty  lit- 


1 88  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

tie  atttiudes  and  gestures,  could  not  altogether  reconcile 
you  to,  but  in  which  he  persisted  through  good  report 
and  bad.  Old  Braxey  (Macqueen,  Lord  Braxfield),  a 
sad  old  cynic,  on  whom  Jeffrey  used  to  set  one  laugh 
ing  often  enough,  was  commonly  reported  to  have  said, 
on  hearing  Jeffrey  again  after  that  Oxford  sojourn, 
'The  laddie  has  clean  tint  his  Scotch,  and  found  nae 
English!'  which  was  an  exaggerative  reading  of  the 
fact,  his  words  and  syllables  being  elaborately  Eng 
lish  (or  English  and  more,  e.  g.,  'heppy,'  'my  lud,' 
etc.,  etc.),  while  the  tune  he  sang  them  to  was  all  his 
own." 

"His  voice,"  says  Carlyle,  "clear,  harmonious,  and 
sonorous,  had  something  of  metallic  in  it,  something 
almost  plangent;  never  rose  into  alt,  into  any  dis 
sonance  of  shrillness,  nor  carried  much  the  character 
of  humor,  though  a  fine  feeling  of  the  ludicrous  al 
ways  dwelt  in  him,  as  you  would  notice  best  when  he 
got  into  Scotch  dialect,  and  gave  you,  with  admirable 
truth  of  mimicry,  old  Edinburgh  incidents  and  experi 
ences  of  his.  *  *  *  His  laugh  was  small  and 
by  no  means  Homeric;  he  never  laughed  loud  (could 
not  do  it  I  should  think),  and  indeed  often  sniggered 
slightly  than  laughed  in  any  way." 

Lord  Cockburn  is  almost  interesting  in  his  descrip 
tion  of  the  voice : 

"His  voice  was  distinct  and  silvery;  so  clear  and 
precise  that  when  in  good  order,  it  was  heard  above 
a  world  of  discordant  sounds.  The  utterance  was 
excessively  rapid;  but  without  spluttering,  slurring, 
or  confusion;  and  regulated  into  deliberate  emphasis, 
whenever  this  was  proper.  The  velocity  of  the  cur 
rent  was  not  more  remarkable  than  its  purity  and 
richness.  His  command  of  language  was  unlimited." 

Charles  Pebody,  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine, 
June,  1870,  writes: 

"He  never  took  up  his  pen  till  the  candles  were  lit. 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  189 

*  *      *     He  did  most  of  his  work  in  those   fatal 
hours  of  inspiration  from  ten  at  night  till  two  or  three 
o'clock  in   the   morning.     *      *      *     His    manuscript 
was  inexpressibly  vile;  for  he  wrote  with  great  haste, 

*  *      *     generally  used  a  wretched  pen,      * 

and  altered,  erased,  and  interlined  without  the  slight 
est    thought    of    the    printer    or    his    correspondent. 

*  *      *     The  explanation  is,  of  course,  the  usual  one 
with  men  of  Jeffrey's  temperament  and  genius.     He 
had  a  horror  and  hatred  of  the  work  of  the  desk. 

*  *      *     His  favorite  hours  of  reading  were  in  the 
morning  and  in  bed,   unless  he  had  to  deal  with   a 
subject  of  peculiar  dignity,  and  in  that  case  he  read  it 
up      *      *      *      at   night;    for   he   had   a    notion   that 
hints  and  suggestions,  facts  and  thoughts,  illustrations 
and  authorities,   picked  up  promiscuously  over-night, 
assorted  themselves  in  sleep  round  their  proper  cen 
tres,   and  thus   reappeared  in  the  morning  in  logical 
order." 

Samuel  Carter  Hall,  that  diffuse,  conceited  and 
prosy  hanger-on  upon  the  outskirts  of  literature, 
seems  to  have  forgotten  his  usual  good-nature — which 
alone  renders  him  endurable — in  his  observations  about 
Jeffrey,  but  he  admits  that  he  did  not  know  him  very 
well. 

"The  far-famed  editor  of  the  Edinburgh  Review 
had  a  few  friends — firm  and  staunch  and  loving 
friends,  and  very  many  foes.  Some  of  them  he  wil 
fully  and  wantonly  made  so;  others  he  did  not  under 
stand,  and  therefore  misrepresented;  others  he  rightly 
and  conscientiously  condemned,  and  soured  into  bit 
ter  and  irrational  hostility." 

He  further  says: 

"No  doubt  he  was  a  bitter,  caustic  and  often  unjust 
critic;  and  during  his  long  career  of  power  there  were 
not  many  cases  wherein  he  exhibited  generosity  and 


190  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

consideration,  or  that  far-seeing  intelligence  which 
can  anticipate  and  augur  good  as,  well  as  bad  in  the 
authors  tried  at  his  tribunal." 

Jeffrey  must  at  some  time  have  treated  Mr.  Hall  as 
the  humbug  he  really  was;  the  assertion  that  he  had  "a 
few  friends"  is  absurdly  inane  and  groundless;  but  then 
Hall  was  a  fat-headed  person,  whose  attempts  to  iden 
tify  himself  with  the  great  men  whom  he  happened  to 
meet  in  a  long  life  of  pottering  about  literature  and 
art  have  not  sufficed  to  preserve  his  name  in  the  mem 
ory  of  posterity. 

IX. 

All — or  nearly  all — those  who  have  left  their  testi 
mony  concerning  him  have  dwelt  upon  his  gentle  and 
kindly  nature.  It  is  true  that  Lockhart,  who  naturally 
could  not  lose  an  opportunity  of  exalting  Scott,  quotes 
from  a  letter  this  quite  ill-natured  comparison : 

"Jeffrey  for  the  most  part  entertained  us,  when 
books  were  under  discussion,  with  the  detection  of 
faults,  blunders,  absurdities,  or  plagiarisms.  Scott 
took  up  the  matter  where  he  left  it,  recalled  some 
compensating  beauty  or  excellence  for  which  no  credit 
had  been  allowed,  and  by  the  recitation,  perhaps,  of 
one  fine  stanza,  set  the  poor  victim  on  his  legs  again." 

The  obvious  implication  is,  that  a  poet— for  it  is 
plain  that  they  were  talking  of  poetry — may  blunder, 
steal  and  be  as  absurd  as  he  likes,  but  no  one  may  speak 
of  it  if  he  has  happened  to  write  "one  fine  stanza." 

One  trait  he  possessed  which  many  will  accept  as 
competent  evidence  of  his  sweetness  of  disposition,  de 
spite  his  occasional  worrying  of  poor  poets — his  fond 
ness  for  animals.  Lord  Cockburn  says: 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  191 

"The  only  friend,  besides  his  wife,  daughter,  and 
servants,  that  he  took  with  him  (to  London)  was  one 
he  often  mentions,  'Poor  Poll,'  a  gray  and  very  wise 
parrot.  He  was  attached  to  all  that  sort  of  domestic 
companions,  and  submitted  to  much  taunts  on  account 
of  the  soft  travelling-basket  for  the  little  dog,  'Witch/ 
and  the  large  cage  for  his  bird.  The  hearth  rug  and 
the  sofa  were  seldom  free  of  his  dumb  pets." 

He  failed  perceptibly  about  ten  years  before  his 
death.  In  one  of  his  charming  letters  to  Miss  Berry, 
given  in  her  "Journal,"  he  writes  (1842)  : 

"Though  the  trachea  is  at  this  moment  my  most 
urgent  malady,  the  most  obstinate  and  formidable  is 
in  another  quarter,  and  one  with  which  you  are  un 
fortunately  but  too  well  acquainted.  You  and  I  should 
be  in  a  very  tolerable  condition  if  it  were  not  for  that 
frigidus  circum  praecordia  sanguis,  though  I  confess 
I  should  scarcely  have  expected  that  our  hearts  should 
be  the  first  things  that  failed  about  us,  and  (pri 
vately)  take  it  rather  amiss."* 

Although  his  health  declined,  he  did  not  become 
morose  or  discouraged,  but  he  maintained  his  interest 
in  books  and  his  fondness  for  his  family  while  con 
tinuing  his  judicial  labors  almost  without  intermission. 
Stephen  refers  to  "his  kindly  old  age,  when  he  could 
hardly  have  spoken  sharply  of  a  Lake  poet."  He  was 
especially  fond  of  Dickens,  and  his  letters  of  appre 
ciation  are  enthusiastic;  he  wept  over  Little  Nell  and 
Paul  Dombey;  and  the  son-in-law  of  Thackeray, 
while  saying  with  what  seems  to  be  unnecessary  con- 
temptuousness  that  "the  emotion  is  a  little  senile," 
admits  that  at  least  it  was  genuine.  He  revised  the 
proof  sheets  of  the  first  two  volumes  of  Macaulay's 


'Miss  Berry's  Journal  (1865),  iii.     475. 


192  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

History,  priding  himself  greatly  upon  his  accuracy  in 
the  matter  of  punctuation.  Hugh  Miller,  in  his  Es 
says  (1862)  refers  to  his  remarkable  energy  when  he 
was  approaching  the  end. 

"All  accounts  agree,"  says  Miller,  "in  representing 
him  as  in  private  life  one  of  the  kindest  and  gentlest 
of  mortals,  ever  surrounded  by  the  aroma  of  a  deli 
cate  sense  of  honor  and  a  transparent  truthfulness, 
equable  in  temper,  in  conversation  full  of  a  playful 
ease,  and,  with  even  his  ordinary  talk,  ever  glittering 
in  an  unpremeditated  wit  'that  loved  to  play,  not 
wound.'  Never  was  there  a  man  more  thoroughly 
beloved  by  his  friends.  Though  his  term  of  life  ex 
ceeded  the  allotted  three  score  and  ten  years,  his  fine 
intellect  *  *  *  was  to  the  last  untouched  by 
decay.  Only  four  days  previous  to  that  of  his  death 
he  sat  upon  the  bench;  only  a  few  months  ago  he  fin 
ished  an  article  for  his  old  Review  distinguished  by 
all  the  nice  discernment  and  acumen  of  his  most  vig 
orous  days.  It  is  further  gratifying  to  know,  that 
though  infected  in  youth  and  middle  age  by  the  wide 
spread  infidelity  of  the  first  French  revolution,  he  was 
for  at  least  the  last  few  years  of  his  life  of  a  differ 
ent  spirit.  He  read  much  and  often  in  his  Bible;  and 
he  is  said  to  have  studied  especially,  and  with  much 
solicitude,  the  writings  of  St.  Paul." 

His  death  occurred  at  Craigcrook,  on  January  26, 
1850.  Empson,  who  married  Jeffrey's  only  daughter, 
Charlotte,  in  1838,  and  who  succeeded  Napier  as 
editor  of  the  Edinburgh  in  1847,  wrote  on  the  28th  to 
Samuel  Rogers: 

"A  three  days'  illness,  apparently  slight  in  its 
causes  and  symptoms,  deprived  us,  at  six  o'clock,  on 
Saturday  evening,  of  our  dear  friend.  Millar  was 
not  alarmed,  nor  Christison,  until  four  and  twenty 
hours  before  his  death.  He  suffered  no  pain,  but 
from  the  sense  of  increasing  weakness.  Wine  and 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  193 

brandy  (he  took  nothing  else)  had  no  effect  on  his 
pulse  or  system.  What  there  was  of  illness  was  a 
feverish  cold,  accompanied  by  a  slight  bronchial 
cough." 

It  was  simply  a  case  of  a  wearing  out  of  the 
heart.  On  the  jist  he  was  buried  in  the  Dean  Ceme 
tery  near  Edinburgh. 

Walter  Bagehot's  article  in  the  National  Review 
of  October,  1855,  on  "The  First  Edinburgh  Review 
ers,"  gives  us  a  pleasant,  kindly,  and  discriminating 
opinion  in  regard  to  Jeffrey.  Referring  to  his  literary 
work,  he  says : 

"Any  one  who  should  expect  to  find  a  pure  perfec 
tion  in  these  miscellaneous  productions  should  remem 
ber  their  bulk.  If  all  his  reviews  were  reprinted  they 
would  be  very  many.  And  all  the  while  he  was  a 
busy  lawyer,  was  editor  of  the  Review,  did  the  busi 
ness,  corrected  the  proof  sheets;  and  more  than  all— 
what  one  would  have  thought  a  very  strong  man's 
work— actually  managed  Henry  Brougham.  You 
must  not  criticise  papers  like  these,  rapidly  written  in 
a  hurry  of  life,  as  you  would  the  painful  words  of  an 
elaborate  sage,  slowly  and  with  anxious  carefulness 
instructing  mankind.  *  *  *  He  was  neither  a 
pathetic  writer  nor  a  profound  writer;  but  he  was 
a  quick-eyed,  bustling,  black-haired,  sagacious,  agree 
able  man  of  the  world.  He  had  his  day,  and  was 
entitled  to  his  day;  but  a  gentle  oblivion  must  now 
cover  his  already  subsiding  reputation." 

Does  not  the  same  "gentle  oblivion"  cover  the  repu 
tation  of  all  writers  who  are  not  great  creators? 

Sir  Leslie  Stephen,  in  the  National  Dictionary  of 
Biography,  presents  a  fair  and  scholarly  estimate  of 
the  career  and  the  character  of  Jeffrey,  and  writing 
a  generation  after  the  Bagehot  review,  seems  to  give 


i94  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

to  the  critic  and  lawyer  a  rank  somewhat  higher  than 
Bagehot  is  inclined  to  bestow. 

"If  he  had  been  less  afraid  of  making  blunders, " 
Stephen  remarks,  "and  trusted  his  natural  instincts, 
he  would  have  left  a  more  permanent  reputation,  and 
achieved  a  less  negative  result." 

Dr.  Winchester  is  not  too  partial  to  Jeffrey,  but 
he  closes  his  discussion  of  the  merits  of  the  reviewer 
with  some  words  of  commendation. 

"In  briefest  summary,  then,"  he  says,  "we  may  ad 
mit  that  to  Jeffrey,  rather  than  to  any  other  man,  may 
be  given  the  credit  of  raising  the  critical  essay  to  the 
rank  of  a  recognized  literary  form;  that  his  writing 
is  always  brilliant  and  plausible,  that  his  critical  ver 
dicts  are  always  clear,  and  if  upon  matters  within  the 
range  of  his  appreciation,  sensible  and  just.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  must  also  be  admitted  that  his  range  of 
appreciation  is  limited;  that  his  impressions  are  of 
ten  worth  more  than  the  dogmas  he  invents  to  justify 
them;  and  that  a  considerable  part  of  his  fame  was 
due  to  the  immense  and  novel  popularity  of  the  Re 
view,  which  raised  him  for  a  time  to  literary  dictator 
ship  almost  like  that  of  Dryden  or  Johnson." 

It  has  been  charged  against  him  that  he  was  with 
out  enthusiasm  in  his  politics,  despondent,  pessimistic; 
prone  to  alarm  for  his  country  and  for  the  interests  of 
the  landed  proprietors;  that  he  was  indifferent  to  the 
development  of  new  forces;  that  he  belonged  to  a  class 
of  men  who  "detest  enthusiasm  wherever  it  may  be 
found"  and  are  antagonistic  to  "every  great  impulse 
of  the  kind  that  leads  men  to  self-sacrifice  and  to  won 
der,  or  to  a  new  world  of  ideal  creation."  These  be 
brave  words,  full  of  sound  and  of  the  frothy  order 
which  captivates  so  many  shallow  minds.  He  could 


A  FAMOUS  REVIEWER  195 

not  be  popular;  for,  as  Chesterton  says:  "the  man  who 
is  popular  must  be  optimistic  about  something,  even 
if  he  is  only  optimistic  about  pessimism."  Jeffrey  was 
a  Whig,  and  it  is  amusing  to  learn  from  one  source 
that  his  radical  views  hampered  his  early  life  as  a  law 
yer  and  from  another  that  he  was  so  ultra-conserva 
tive  as  to  entertain  some  regard  and  respect  for  the 
rights  of  property.  It  is  conceded  that  he  was  an 
advocate  of  reform  in  the  criminal  laws,  the  game 
laws,  the  anti-Catholic  laws,  the  abuses  of  Chancery, 
and  the  evils  of  colonial  slavery.  Yet  because  he  was 
unwilling  to  throw  up  his  cap  wildly  in  acclaiming 
every  scheme  devised  by  unscrupulous  agitators  for 
the  universal  betterment  of  mankind — and  incidentally 
for  their  own  personal  advancement  and  aggrandise 
ment — he  is  called  "pessimistic,"  and  "aristocratic." 
His  clear  vision  foresaw  the  coming  of  a  time  when  the 
majority  of  men,  possessing  the  maximum  of  all  the 
meaner  qualities  of  man,  would  awake  to  a  sense  of 
their  power  and  under  the  guise  of  a  pretended  zeal  for 
the  improvement  of  the  race  and  its  conditions,  would 
seek  to  appropriate  for  the  benefit  of  the  lazy,  vicious 
and  unthrifty,  the  rewards  of  integrity,  intelligence, 
and  industry.  If  he  was  opposed  to  "the  doctrine  of 
equality  and  every  form  of  socialism,"  it  was  not  be 
cause  he  was  aristocratic,  in  the  ordinary  meaning  of 
the  term,  but  because  he  was  not  deceived  by  false  pro 
phets  and  because  he  knew  that  the  errors  and  faults  of 
humanity  cannot  be  eradicated  by  empty  talk  about  the 
brotherhood  of  man  and  his  indefinite  perfectibility. 
He  had  no  fondness  for  that  equality  which  is  secured 
by  pulling  down  instead  of  by  uplifting. 

,' 
On  the  whole,  it  may  be  said  of  him  that  he  was 


196  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

an  accomplished  man;  whose  resources  were  always 
fully  at  his  command;  possessing  no  great  inventive 
force,  but  a  charm  of  speech  and  manner  which  en 
abled  him  to  exercise  over  those  whom  he  met,  what 
is  popularly  known  as  personal  magnetism;  too  fas 
tidious,  perhaps,  in  many  of  his  tastes,  but  endowed 
with  a  capacity  of  literary  judgment  usually  just  if  not 
always  infallible.  He  distrusted  his  own  ability  to  give 
to  the  world  a  book  that  would  survive  him ;  his  critical 
faculties  had  been  cultivated  at  the  expense  of  the  cre 
ative  faculty.  A  reviewer  of  the  work  of  others,  he 
would  have  reviewed  his  own  with  like  fearlessness 
and  discrimination.  He  did  not  choose  to  subject  him 
self  to  the  later  sneer  of  Disraeli  and  furnish  another 
example  of  a  critic  who  failed  in  literature.  So  we 
must  seek  his  monument  in  the  faded  pages  of  the 
Edinburgh  Review. 


MANNERS  MAKYTH  MAN 

WHEN  Swift  was  only  a   few  years  past 
thirty  he  amused  himself  by  preparing 
a    code    for    his    conduct    "when    he 
should  come   to  be   old,"   and  one   of 
his    rules    was    "not    to    scorn    present 
ways,  or  wits,  or  fashions,  or  men,  or  war."     But  ex 
perience  tells  us  that  neither  he  nor  any  man  who  has 
passed  the  half-century  mark  and  entered  upon  "com 
mencing  old  age"  ever  followed  that  rule;  it  is  a  mere 
New  Year  resolve,  made  only  to  be  broken.     Perhaps 
it  is  not  precisely  "scorn"  which  is  manifested  by  the 
elderly  person,    but   rather   disapproval,    particularly 
if  he  has  had  a  reasonable  amount  of  success  in  life 
and  has  therefore  acquired  the  habit  of  what  is  called 
"conservatism,"— that  is  to   say,   the   desire   to  keep 
things  as  they  were  because  all  went  very  well  then. 
We  utter  a  truism  when  we  say  that  the  nature  of  man 
remains    substantially   the   same    from    generation   to 
generation,  and  that  manners  change  much,  but  men 
continue  to  be  about  as  wise  or  as  silly  as  their  fathers 
were.     We  are  all  apt  to  derive  much  comfort  from 
the  notion  that  in  some  indefinite   future   everything 
is  to  be  perfect,  every  human  being  is  to  think  only  of 
the  welfare  of  his  brother  man  or  sister  woman;  pov 
erty,  misery,  sin,  and  crime  are  to  disappear;  and  all 
mankind  are  to  dwell  in  a  serene  atmosphere  of  peace, 
love,  and  harmony,  forgetting  what  Mr.  Locke  calls 
"the  glorious  duty  of  selfishness."     It  will  be  a  dull 
and  stupid  life  when  that  millenium  is  reached,  but 

197 


198  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

there  is  consolation  in  the  thought  that  it  will  come 
to  us  at  about  the  time  when  we  find  the  bag  of  gold 
at  the  foot  of  the  rainbow. 

It  was  not  surprising  when  at  what  in  his  custom 
ary  grandiloquence  of  phrase  the  newspaper  report 
ers  styles  "a  banquet,"  I  heard  an  eminent  educator, 
of  the  "popular"  variety,  intimate  that  we  must  think 
only  of  the  future, — not  of  the  present  or  of  the  past. 
His  approving  audience  applauded  this  sentiment  vig 
orously.  I  am  not  sure  that  I  know  exactly  what  he 
meant.  If  one  does  not  think  at  all  of  the  past,  he 
must  reduce  his  mind  to  comparative  vacuity,  relin 
quish  the  "pleasures  of  memory,"  abandon  the  les 
sons  of  experience,  part  with  the  emotions  of  grati 
tude,  patriotism,  and  filial  affection;  and  if  one  does 
not  think  at  all  of  the  present,  he  is  in  much  danger 
of  being  run  over  by  a  motor-car.  In  all  likelihood 
the  speaker  did  not  intend  to  be  taken  literally;  his 
utterance  was  only  a  bit  of  rhetorical  exaggeration, 
which  we  often  hear  from  orators  after  the  sounding 
of  the  stroke  of  midnight.  It  is  like  the  assertion  of 
a  distinguished  University  President,  made  on  numer 
ous  occasions,  to  the  effect  that  our  boys  should  be 
brought  up  to  be  "as  much  unlike  their  fathers  as  pos 
sible;"  which  amazing  precept,  if  carried  to  its  logical 
result,  would  require  us  to  educate  the  son  of  a  learned 
and  pious  divine  to  be  wholly  devoid  of  learning  and 
thoroughly  devoted  to  crime.  He  did  not  intend  to 
violate  the  commandment  about  honoring  one's  father 
but,  in  his  modesty,  he  merely  wished  to  add  to  the 
decalogue  a  new  commandment — "Forget  thy  father 
and  thy  mother  and  be  like  me."  One  trouble  about 
these  showy,  banquet-bred  generalizations  is,  that 
while  they  tickle  the  ears  of  the  banqueters  who  have 


MANNERS  MAKYTH  MAN  199 

banqueted  freely,  they  are  seldom  or  never  strictly 
true,  and  they  do  not  look  or  sound  as  well  on  the 
morning  after  as  they  did  in  the  glamour  of  the  cigars 
and  the  champagne.  Nevertheless  "it  is  in  the  nature 
of  the  mind  of  man"  according  to  Bacon,  "to  the  ex 
treme  prejudice  of  knowledge  to  delight  in  the  spaci 
ous  liberalities  of  generalities,  as  in  a  Champain  re 
gion,  and  not  in  the  inclosures  of  particularity."  We 
must  not  take  the  after-dinner  speaker  au  pied  de  la 
lettre.  There  is  much  to  be  said  in  favor  of  contem 
plating  the  future;  but  we  had  a  Greek  saying  in  my 
college  days  which  I  would  like  to  give  in  the  origi 
nal,  but  refrain,  because  I  have  wholly  forgotten  my 
accents — "the  future  will  be  secure  if  your  present 
work  be  well  done." 

The  famous  Dean  was  right,  in  the  main ;  we  should 
not  scorn  present  ways,  or  wits,  or  fashions,  or  men, 
or  war — although  I  am  inclined  to  doubt  whether  we 
should  not  have  a  wholesome  scorn  of  war,  past,  pres 
ent  or  future,  if  war  is  what  it  was  concisely,  mono- 
syllablically  and  forcibly  pronounced  to  be  by  the  great 
soldier  who  marched  through  Georgia.  Yet  it  may  be 
permitted  even  to  the  middle  aged  to  indulge  in  a  little 
mild  criticism;  if  everyone,  young  and  old,  should  join 
in  a  chorus  of  approbation  of  everything,  the  monotony 
would  be  unendurable;  it  would  be  like  the  constant 
diet  of  candy  to  which  the  young  Duke  in  Patience 
objected  so  strongly.  One  need  not  be  scolding  or 
finding  fault  all  the  time :  but  the  only  thing  which  is 
more  odious  than  a  confirmed  pessimist  is  a  persistent 
optimist.  The  moderate  pessimist — if  logically  such 
a  being  may  exist — has  his  uses.  The  sourness  of  the 
lemon  adds  to  the  palatability  of  the  succulent  oyster, 
or,  to  avail  of  a  simile  for  which  an  apology  is  due  to 


200  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

the  enthusiastic  prohibitionists  of  Maine  and  Kansas, 
the  tinge  of  the  bitters  in  the  pre-prandial  cocktail  lends 
an  indescribable  charm  to  that  reprehensible  but  pleas 
ant  beverage.  As  the  author  of  "Excursions  of  a 
Book-Lover"  said  of  late: 

"The  optimist  is  good  in  his  place,  but  as  much 
may  be  said  of  the  pessimist.  Not  always,  but  often, 
there  is  about  the  optimist  a  certain  vulgarity  not  to 
be  discovered  in  the  pessimist.  There  is  an  offensive 
smacking  of  the  lips  over  the  good  things  of  this  life, 
and  an  indifference  to  the  troubles  of  others  that  not 
infrequently  render  the  optimist  somewhat  disgusting 
to  men  of  finer  nerve  and  kinder  heart." 

But  the  optimist  is  "popular,"  and  most  men  crave 
popularity. 

An  excellent  young  American,  then  recently  gradu 
ated  from  one  of  our  best  colleges — which,  with  a  fond 
but  mistaken  pride,  we  call  "universities" — some  years 
ago,  in  company  with  a  fellow-American,  was  saunter 
ing  through  the  lovely  gardens  of  New  College,  Ox 
ford,  and  tempted  by  the  smooth  grass,  reclined  thereon 
while  each  indulged  in  the  luxury  of  a  cigar.  To  them 
appeared  of  a  sudden  a  venerable  guardian  who,  with 
out  uttering  a  word,  beckoned  mysteriously  to  them. 
Impressed  by  his  age  and  majesty,  they  arose  and  were 
led  by  him  beyond  the  gate,  where  he  requested  them 
to  turn  about  and  view  that  sculptured  relic.  "What 
do  you  see?"  he  asked  in  those  sepulchral  accents  com 
mon  among  venerable  Britons  in  authority.  They  said 
that  they  had  observed  that  gate  and  had  admired  its 
beauty.  "But,"  said  the  solemn  dignitary,  "what  do 
you  read  there?"  They  deciphered  the  inscription 
"Manners  Makyth  Man."  "Gentlemen  do  not  smoke 
in  the  gardens  of  New  College,"  said  the  white-haired 


MANNERS  MAKYTH  MAN  201 

custodian.  No  doubt  it  was  his  favorite  joke,  well 
crusted  by  years  of  placid  enjoyment. 

When  William  of  Wykeham  devised  his  celebrated 
motto  he  was  not  referring,  as  we  know,  to  behavior 
towards  others  as  much  as  to  what  the  Roman  friends 
of  our  youth,  whom  it  is  now  unfashionable  to  mention, 
denominated  mores — a  course  of  life,  morals  in  the 
largest  sense.  But  there  s  a  measure  of  truth  in  the 
construction  of  the  wise  saying  adopted  by  the  ancient 
keeper  of  New  College  Gardens.  If  the  "manners" 
of  the  twentieth  century  "makyth  man,"  the  product  is 
not  particularly  agreeable.  But  the  manners  of  the 
nineteenth  were  no  doubt  as  unpleasant  to  the  stately 
folk  of  its  predecessor,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum:  es 
pecially  the  manners  of  the  young  people  who  are  fol 
lowing  the  course  laid  down  for  them  by  the  great 
educator  and  are  so  absorbed  in  the  study  of  the  future 
that  they  have  little  time  to  think  of  the  duties  and  pro 
prieties  of  the  present. 

Certain  laws  of  decency  may  not  be  violated  without 
causing  decay  or  degeneracy  in  the  moral  fibre  of  the 
offenders.  The  youth  of  either  sex  who  habitually  dis 
regard  the  obvious  requirements  of  politeness — a  word 
now  almost  obsolete — and  who  are  absolutely  uncon 
scious  of  the  rights  and  the  feelings  of  others,  are 
surely  not  to  be  expected  to  aid  materially  in  the  de 
velopment  of  altruism,  to  devote  themselves  to  pro 
moting  the  good  of  mankind,  or  to  accomplish  much 
in  advancing  the  cause  of  common  humanity.  The 
modern  idea  that  young  people,  at  least  those  of  the 
more  prosperous  orders  of  society,  are  to  be  indulged 
to  the  top  of  their  bent,  that  they  are  to  be  entertained 
and  amused  at  the  expense  of  their  elders,  that  they  are 
to  have  "a  good  time"  because  in  due  course  they  will 


202  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

become  old  and  cannot,  is  largely  the  efficient  cause  of 
their  folly  and  their  indifference  to  the  demands  of 
ordinary  courtesy.  It  is  responsible  for  the  misfor 
tune  that  the  majority  of  our  young  people,  principally 
alas!  of  our  young  women,  are  inclined  to  be  vain, 
heedless,  self-willed,  and  noisy.  The  conduct  of  a 
drove  of  them  in  public  leads  us  to  wonder  if  indeed 
these  are  the  heirs  of  all  the  ages,  the  best  result  of  our 
highly  organized  civilization.  Now  I  must  concede 
that  the  accusation  is  not  new,  for  we  find  my  Lord 
Chesterfield,  writing  in  1767  to  his  hopeful  godson: 

"Learning  without  politeness  makes  a  disagreeable 
Pedant,  and  politeness  without  learning  makes  a  su 
perficial  frivolous  Puppy.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  in 
general  the  Youth  of  the  present  age  have  neither. 
Their  manners  are  illiberal,  and  their  ignorance  is 
notorious.  They  are  sportsmen,  they  are  jockeys, 
they  know  nor  love  nothing  but  dogs  and  horses,  rac 
ing  and  hunting." 

But  he  was  writing  only  of  the  males:  now  we  are 
doubling  the  offense  of  it,  just  as  we  are  threatened 
with  a  doubling  of  the  evils  of  universal  suffrage  by 
giving  the  so-called  right  of  voting  to  the  feminine  half 
of  the  community.  What  Chesterfield  wrote  might 
well  have  been  written  to-day,  with  a  few  additions. 
The  trouble  always  is  that  the  offending  do  not  care 
to  please;  to  them  it  is  a  sad  sacrifice  of  time  and  labor. 
As  the  same  wise  observer  says : 

"The  first  great  step  toward  pleasing  is  the  desire 
to  please,  and  whoever  really  desires  it  will  please  to 
a  certain  degree." 

But  in  our  youthful  sybarites  of  to-day  the  idea  of 
pleasing  any  but  their  own  dear  selves  is  manifestly 
strange  and  abhorrent. 


MANNERS  MAKYTH  MAN  203 

Sport  and  play  are  good  things  in  due  moderation; 
but  when  the  young  men  and  women  of  any  land  think 
only  of  sports,  devote  their  waking  hours  wholly  to 
sports  and  play,  can  talk  of  nothing  but  sports  and  play, 
that  land  is  doomed  to  decadence.  All  work  and  no 
play  makes  Jack  a  dull  boy,  we  know ;  but  all  play  and 
no  work  makes  Jack  a  very  stupid  and  silly  boy,  and 
Jill  comes  tumbling  after. 

Such  assertions  are  naturally  distasteful  to  the  gen 
eral;  and  whoever  reads  them  will  be  inclined  to  cry 
out  in  contempt,  if  he  deems  them  worthy  of  so  much 
attention.  Should  any  of  our  omniscient  newspaper 
folk  honor  them  with  a  word  of  comment,  it  will  be 
indignant,  petulant,  and  abusive.  For  the  newspaper 
is  bound  to  flatter  its  readers :  and  a  large  portion  of 
its  daily  contents  consists  of  reports  of  games,  sports, 
and  "society  intelligence" — the  marriages  of  Daisy  and 
Jack,  George  and  Gladys,  their  attendants,  their  wed 
ding  gifts,  and  what  they  are  going  to  do  in  the  way 
of  enjoying  life  after  they  have  ended  the  honeymoon. 
We  have  pages  on  pages  about  base  ball  games,  prize 
fights,  golf  and  tennis  tournaments,  automobile  con 
tests,  competition  in  what  is  fantastically  termed  "avia 
tion,"— all  the  ephemeral  topics  of  "play."  Soon  we 
may  have  columns  about  hop-scotch  and  marbles.  Let 
us  be  thankful  however  that  the  immense  mass  of  it 
crowds  out  the  chronicles  of  crime  and  the  indecent  de 
tails  of  all  sorts  of  occurrences  which  may  better  be 
buried  in  the  latrines  devoted  to  the  purpose  of  hiding 
such  rottenness  from  public  view. 

But  modern  lack  of  politeness  is  not  due  wholly  to 
the  spoiled  children;  the  adults  are  little  better.  We 
have  read  of  late  some  favor-currying  screeds  in  our 
daily  press  written  by  cunning  foreigners  in  order  to 


204  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

win  the  good  will  and  consequent  pecuniary  profit  which 
attends  the  expression  of  well-devised  flattery,  in  which 
it  is  asserted  that  New  Yorkers  are  the  most  polite 
people  on  earth.  That  sort  of  talk  usually  elicits  the 
unqualified  approval  of  the  flattered;  but  when  Hop- 
kinson  Smith  dared  to  tell  the  truth  he  was  denounced 
as  severely  as  a  public  favorite  ever  is  by  the  gentlemen 
of  the  newspapers. 

It  is  permissible  to  scold  occasionally  about  minor 
things.  I  suppose  that  I  am  what  is  called  "grouchy" 
—a  word  not  to  be  found  in  the  best  dictionaries,  but 
yet  an  admirable  word,  and  one  that  most  of  us  un 
derstand  ;  although  in  my  youth  I  would  probably  have 
associated  it  only  with  that  luckless  Marshal  of  France 
who  bore,  justly  or  unjustly,  the  blame  for  the  defeat 
of  Napoleon  at  Waterloo.  One  manifestation  of  the 
rudeness  of  the  day  and  of  the  growing  disregard  of 
considerations  of  propriety,  may  be  trifling  in  itself  but 
it  is  typical.  Men,  and  commonly  young  men,  now 
smoke  in  public  or  semi-public  dining  rooms  when  wo 
men  are  present.  This  breach  of  the  law  of  good  man 
ners  is  not  peculiar  to  boys;  I  have  seen  with  disgust 
a  distinguished  American  diplomat  indulging  himself 
in  this  unpardonable  assault  upon  the  canons  of  good 
behavior.  Smoking  is  not  a  grave  offence  when  it  is 
practised  in  a  proper  place :  far  be  it  from  a  confirmed 
smoker  of  nearly  fifty  years  standing  to  utter  a  fanci 
ful  objection  to  it;  but  there  are  many  otherwise  so 
ciable  and  admirable  people  to  whom  the  odor  of  to 
bacco  and  especially  of  cigarettes  is  exceedingly  offen 
sive,  particularly  when  they  are  only  half  through 
dinner.  The  man  who  is  most  devoid  not  only  of  man 
ners  but  of  morals  is  the  cigarette  smoker  who  puffs 
the  acrid,  noisome  fumes  in  your  face  at  all  times  and 


MANNERS  MAKYTH  MAN  205 

in  all  seasons,  even  at  your  breakfast  table,  and  adds 
insult  by  depositing  the  ashes  and  the  "butts"  on  the 
floor,  on  the  table,  on  the  library  shelves,  or  in  any 
place  which  may  be  convenient  for  him,  however  in 
convenient  it  may  be  for  his  host,  while  the  smoulder 
ing,  nauseating  remnants  poison  your  air  and  upset 
your  digestion.  For  this  shameless  offender,  boiling 
oil  and  melted  lead  are  scarcely  adequate  punishments. 
Yet  so  common  has  become  the  gross  abuse  of  smok 
ing  in  dining  rooms  of  hotels  and  restraurants,  and 
even  at  meals  in  private  houses,  that  hardly  any  one 
may  be  found  at  this  day  to  raise  his  feeble  voice  in 
protest  against  it.  It  is  a  modern  abomination,  and  in 
all  shame  and  humility  I  confess  that  I  have  been  guilty 
of  it  myself. 

There  is  another  petty  annoyance  to  which  we  may 
refer  merely  as  a  proof  that  men  otherwise  estimable 
enough  are  thoughtless  regarding  the  natural  rights  of 
others.  The  telephone  is  one  of  the  most  serviceable 
and  convenient  nuisances  of  modern  times.  It  is  per 
emptory  czar,  and  when  one  is  "rung  up"  there  seems 
to  be  an  absolute  necessity  of  answering  the  call  forth 
with.  Nine  times  out  of  ten  the  calling  person — gen 
erally  summoning  you  on  business  more  important  to 
him  than  to  you— after  you  have  responded  to  the  shrill 
girl  who  operates  the  machinery,  compels  you  to  wait 
until  it  suits  his  convenience  to  come  to  the  transmitter; 
and  there  one  sits,  patiently  or  otherwise,  wasting  his 
own  time,  awaiting  the  pleasure  of  the  lordly  person 
age  who  has  disturbed  him  and  who  ought  to  have 
been  ready  at  the  instant.  This  particular  exhibition 
of  disgraceful  effrontery  is  most  common  among  the 
possessors  of  what  my  friend,  the  Complete  Letter 
Writer  of  Wall  Street,  used  to  call  "the  unconscious 


206  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

insolence  of  conscious  wealth."  It  is  a  sad  reflection 
that  chafe  as  we  do  under  the  inexcusable  brutality  of 
it,  we  generally  submit  to  it  chiefly  because  we  hesitate 
to  "make  a  fuss"  over  a  serious  abuse  when  we  are  com 
pelled  to  endure  so  much  greater  ones;  but  it  arouses 
flames  of  wrath  and  I  am  always  trying  to  plan  an  ef 
fective  method  of  rebuke.  When  people  send  tickets 
for  "charitable  entertainments"  and  ask  us  to  return 
them  if  we  do  not  pay  for  them  we  take  our  revenge 
by  throwing  tickets  and  all  in  the  waste  basket;  but  I 
do  not  know  exactly  what  to  do  about  the  odious  man 
who  "telephones"  and  compels  me  to  wait  for  him. 
Some  day  there  will  be  an  assassination  and  a  verdict 
of  justifiable  homicide. 

The  luckless  person  who  is  obliged  to  ride  in  our 
street  cars  or  to  walk  upon  our  thoroughfares  must 
recognize  the  sad  truth  that  in  order  to  preserve  his  equi 
librium  or  to  proceed  with  an  ordinary  amount  of  com 
fort  he  must  exercise  that  eternal  vigilance  which  is 
said  to  be  the  price  of  liberty.  On  the  cars,  one  must 
not  expect  of  course  any  thoughtful  regard  on  the  part 
of  any  passenger  for  the  convenience  or  the  comfort  of 
any  other  passenger,  or  even  any  respect  for  laws  and 
ordinances.  I  am  referring  chiefly  to  New  York  and 
Philadelphia,  for  there  is  a  better  state  of  affairs  in 
Boston  and  even  a  worse  condition  in  Chicago,  where 
most  of  the  passengers  are  mere  ordinary  thugs.  Men 
— and  women  too— crowd  the  rear  platform  when  there 
is  abundant  room  inside,  preventing  entrance  or  exit, 
the  male  offender  generally  puffing  a  cigar  made  of 
near-tobacco,  an  offence  prohibited  by  law,  but  nobody 
seems  to  have  the  courage  to  call  for  the  enforcement 
of  the  law,  mainly  because  our  learned  and  discrimina 
ting  Police  Magistrates  appear  to  have  a  contemptuous 


MANNERS  MAKYTH  MAN  207 

opinion  of  the  complainant  in  such  cases  and  he  is  usually 
lucky  if  he  escapes  without  sarcastic  comments  upon  his 
absurdly  finical  temperament,  duly  reported  in  the  news 
papers  with  admiring  glee.  Those  who  have  seats  es 
tablish  themselves  in  such  a  position  as  to  occupy  the 
place  of  two,  and  seldom  or  never  make  room  for  in 
comers.  The  strap-hangers  infest  the  rear  of  the  ve 
hicle  in  order  to  cause  the  greatest  amount  of  trouble 
for  the  others,  and  are  indignant  at  a  modest  request 
to  "move  up;"  and  those  seated  ones  who  do  not  sprawl 
about  in  an  effort  to  look  out  of  the  window,  cross  their 
legs  and  obstruct  the  aisle.  The  women  commonly  take 
up  room  beside  them  with  boxes  and  bundles,  oblivious 
of  those  who  are  obliged  to  stand.  If  any  one  enters 
or  departs  by  the  front  door,  he  rarely  closes  it  after 
him.  In  short,  no  consideration  for  others  is  exhibited 
except  in  one  instance;  men  still  offer  a  seat  to  a  wo 
man  who  has  a  child  in  her  arms. 

On  the  sidewalks  the  shambling  cubs  persistently 
shuffle  along,  usually  on  the  wrong  side,  and  when  a 
hapless  pedestrian  happens  to  be  going  in  an  opposite 
direction,  he  is  generally  shoved  into  the  gutter.  Down 
town,  since  the  advent  of  the  feminine  stenographers 
and  typewriters,  those  gentle,  soft-voiced,  over-dressed 
creatures  crowd  the  walks  and  promenade  three  or  four 
abreast  while  they  shriek  their  amatory  or  sartorial  con 
fidences  to  one  another  and  monopolize  the  pavement., 
regardless  of  the  progress  of  those  who  are  forced  to 
encounter  their  serried  ranks.  The  familiar  device  of 
setting  one's  shoulder  firmly  to  meet  the  onset  of  the 
cub  cannot  be  resorted  to  as  against  the  type-writer 
mob;  and  the  unhappy  wayfarer  meekly  betakes  him 
self  to  the  middle  of  the  street  where  he  braves  the  ter 
rors  of  the  lordly  truck-driver  and  the  haughty  chauf- 


208  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

feur,  and  stumbles  over  the  cart  of  the  foreign  fruit- 
vendor  who,  for  some  inscrutable  reason,  is  allowed  to 
occupy,  free  of  charge,  large  portions  of  the  public  do 
main  in  the  transaction  of  his  personal  and  private  busi 
ness  and  abounds  mostly  in  our  narrowest  and  most 
crowded  roadways. 

I  plead  guilty  to  being  a  sour,  ill-tempered,  elderly 
gentleman,  unable  to  find  amusement  and  delight  in 
submitting  to  the  trivial  insults  of  the  merry  creatures 
who  think  that  any  caitiff  who  resents  their  ill-behavior 
must  be  a  hopeless  misanthrope.  Why,  my  friend, 
should  you  complain  about  little  things  like  these,  which 
make  me  so  happy?  Why  do  you  grumble  when  I  turn 
over  the  seat  in  the  railway  car  so  that  I  may  monopo 
lize  four  places,  one  for  my  valise,  one  for  my  golfing 
outfit,  and  two  for  my  sacred  person  while  you  stand 
abashed  and  wistful,  tossed  about  much,  like  the  pious 
^Eneas,  as  the  train  dashes  over  the  curves?  Why  do 
you  utter  sniffs  of  disgust  when  I  open  the  window  as 
we  enter  the  long  tunnel,  in  order  that  free  admission 
may  be  afforded  for  the  coal-gas  and  the  smoke?  What 
if  the  sum  of  such  trifles  makes  up  a  good  deal  of  the 
misery  of  existence?  It  is  your  misery,  not  mine,  and 
you  are  a  mouldering  relic  of  a  vanished  time  when 
men  wished  to  please,  and  therefore  practised  the  art 
of  politeness. 

As  far  as  the  misuse  of  our  roads  and  streets  Is  con 
cerned,  the  fiend  of  the  motor-cycle  and  the  monarch 
of  the  automobile  are  the  most  oppressive  and  tyran 
nical.  The  ordinarily  decent  citizen  becomes  utterly  des 
titute  of  morals  when  he  is  in  control  of  a  motor-car, 
wrapped  in  his  own  mantle  of  unrestricted  power.  We 
submit  meekly  to  be  driven  into  the  ditch,  to  be  covered 
by  the  dust,  to  be  deafened  by  his  hideous  "honks,"  and 


MANNERS  MAKYTH  MAN  209 

to  be  stifled  by  his  unnecessary  smoke.  We  are  grate 
ful  if  when  he  has  run  us  down  and  mutilated  our  un 
offending  bodies,  he  will  condescend  to  pick  us  up  and 
carry  us  to  the  nearest  hospital.  In  absolute  disregard 
of  others,  the  hired  chauffeur  is  far  surpassed  by  the 
owner — or  the  owner's  son.  That  is  why,  when  I  am 
trudging  along  the  highway  and  behold  an  approaching 
car  whose  owner  is  in  charge  of  its  movements,  I  gen 
erally  climb  a  tree.  No  doubt  when  I  own  a  motor-car 
myself,  my  extreme  views  on  the  subject  may  be  slightly 
modified. 

The  decay  of  good  manners  may  be  due  in  part  to 
an  over-estimate  of  the  value  of  what  are  called  "demo 
cratic  ideals"  which  are  no  new  things,  and  which  as 
understood  in  these  times,  are  based  upon  the  precept 
that  you  should  love  your  neighbor  as  yourself — if  he 
has  a  vote— but  that  your  neighbor  is  in  no  way  bound 
to  love  you,  unless  you  go  a  little  further  and  let  him 
kick  you  when  he  is  so  inclined.  The  gospel  of  equal 
ity  among  men  is  preached  to  us  with  much  fervor  and 
insistence,  particularly  by  clergymen,  college  professors, 
and  candidates  for  office.  I  am  not  in  accord  with  Fran 
cis  Parkman  when  he  spoke  of  modern  democracy  as 

"organized  ignorance,  led  by  unscruplous  craft,  and 
marching,  amid  the  applause  of  fools,  under  the  flag  of 
equal  rights." 

It  is  needless  to  get  as  excited  about  it  as  all  that. 
There  is  no  real  objection  to  it,  although  it  is  partly 
founded  upon  a  fallacious  interpretation  of  one  of  Mr. 
Jefferson's  "glittering  generalities;"  it  has  a  grand 
sound  and  it  is  pleasing  to  most  of  those  who  listen  to 
it.  When  we  reflect  upon  it  with  coolness,  we  know 
that  men  are  not  and  cannot  be  equal  in  everything.  No 


210  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

legislation  can  make  them  equal  in  thrift,  in  morals,  in 
virtue,  or  in  intellect.  Equality  of  opportunity  may 
perhaps  be  ensured  by  man-made  laws,  but  they  must 
be  better  framed  than  our  laws  generally  are.  The  dif 
ferences  among  men  were  created  by  the  fat  of  the  Al 
mighty,  a  decree  of  higher  force  than  even  the  judg 
ment  of  the  great  tribunal  in  Washington — pronounced 
by  a  divided  court.  Conceding  however  that  every 
man  is  as  good  as  every  other  man,  one  of  the  diffi 
culties  to  be  found  in  the  results  of  the  disinterested 
efforts  of  our  apostles  of  equality  is  that  the  uncultured 
person  appears  to  entertain  the  opinion  that  it  is  neces 
sary,  in  order  to  maintain  his  equality  with  the  cultured, 
to  domineer  over  him,  to  put  him  down,  to  humiliate 
him.  It  may  be  that  in  the  work  of  making  the  world 
perfect  we  should  compel  the  educated  and  refined  to 
abate  something  of  their  refinement,  so  as  not  to  of 
fend  the  others;  but  it  seems  unprofitable  to  exalt  the 
vulgar  merely  to  preserve  a  so-called  equality.  The 
honest  son  of  toil  who  dons  a  clean  shirt  once  a  week 
and  indulges  in  a  bath  twice  a  year,  is  fully  as  deserving 
as  the  luxurious  mortal  who  changes  his  shirt  twice  a 
day  and  has  his  cold  plunge  every  morning,  but  must 
we  bow  down  to  him  and  adore  him  because  of  his  noble 
indifference  to  the  mere  luxuries  of  fresh  linen  and  pure 
water?  For  pity's  sake,  mes  camarades,  as  our  own 
great  Walt  would  call  you,  have  a  little  tolerance  for 
the  clean;  do  not  boast  yourselves  so  greatly  of  your 
superiority  of  simplicity.  Do  not  despise  those  who  de 
light  in  books,  for  example.  We  know  that  it  is  a  mis 
erable  weakness  to  be  fond  of  books,  but  pray  do  not 
crush  us  worms  under  your  iron  heels  for  so  trivial  an 
offence.  Have  some  regard  for  our  poor  tastes  and 
preferences;  it  is  not  incumbent  upon  you  to  trample  on 


MANNERS  MAKYTH  MAN  2 1 1 

us  in  order  to  make  us  your  equals.  We  do  not  com 
plain  of  most  of  your  ways  and  customs,  of  your  fond 
ness  for  certain  strenuous  forms  of  diversion,  of  your 
mode  of  speech,  or  even  of  your  manifest  purpose  of 
extortion  when  you  deal  with  our  property.  We  ask 
only  that  you  should  give  your  lofty  consideration  now 
and  then  to  what  is  commonly  called  "The  Golden 
Rule."  Really,  it  is  a  good  rule;  Congress  has  not  yet 
abolished  it  as  constituting  an  improper  restriction  upon 
the  freedom  of  interstate  commerce ;  but  that  may  come 
to  pass.  Even  our  later  Presidents  have  not  framed 
and  thrust  upon  our  intelligent  legislators  any  bill  to  do 
away  with  it  or  to  modify  it  in  accordance  with  popular 
demand  in  the  West,  so  as  to  read: 

"Do  unto  others  as  you  would  have  them  do  unto 
you,  provided  however  that  in  doing  it  unto  others 
you  shall  require  the  others  to  submit  in  all  respects 
to  the  wishes  and  preferences  of  the  majority  of  the 
qualified  voters  in  the  land,  including  all  Italians, 
Hungarians,  Scandinavians  and  other  emigrants  and 
every  ignorant  being  in  the  country  except  Indians  not 
taxed." 

We  know  that  the  cry  of  the  day  is,  in  substance : 

"Liberty  and  Humbug,  now  and  forever,  one  and 
inseparable." 

But  be  careful  lest  in  your  high-minded  aspiration 
to  be  so  much  the  equals  of  the  "better  classes,"  you 
succeed  in  putting  them  so  far  under  you,  that  you  de 
stroy  the  government  which  protects  you  in  your  place 
of  eminence;  and  in  your  effort  to  tax  property  to  the 
utmost  you  may  sooner  or  later  be  unable  to  find  any 
property  to  tax. 

Manners  makyth  man;  the  lack  of  them  makyth 
— something  quite  different. 


THE  WAR  ON  THE  COLLEGES 

IT  is  undoubtedly  reprehensible  rashness  in  an  or 
dinary  person,  untrained  in  the  profession  of 
pedagogy  to  express  views  about  so  grave  a 
matter  as  education.  The  expert  men  who  de 
vote  their  energies  exclusively  to  the  task 
of  training  the  youthful  mind  are  apt  to  eye 
with  justifiable  jealousy  or  indignation  the  at 
tempt  of  the  outsider  to  invade  their  peculiar  pro 
vince,  and  their  prohibitory  signs  are  as  manifest  to  the 
beholder  as  are  those  in  the  Central  Park  which  warn 
the  heedless  to  ukeep  off  the  grass."  But  the  average 
American  has  a  way  of  bestowing  upon  mankind  the 
boon  of  his  own  opinions,  whether  in  regard  to  poli 
tics,  economics,  science,  or  religion,  without  much  hesi 
tancy  about  his  own  competence,  in  which  respect  he 
is  not  unlike  his  fellow-beings  of  other  nationalities; 
and  after  he  has  reached  an  age  when  he  begins  to 
lead  what  Mr.  Benson  calls  "a  life  of  reflection,  rather 
than  of  action,  of  contemplation  rather  than  of  busi 
ness,"  he  begins  to  feel  that  it  is  not  always  those  who 
are  engaged  in  the  turmoil  of  the  battle  who  are  most 
capable  of  judging  the  merits  of  the  campaign  and  that 
the  unconcerned  spectator  may  be  able  to  arrive  at 
sound  conclusions  with  as  much  accuracy  and  clear 
ness  as  the  one  who  is  in  the  thick  of  the  fight;  at  least, 
that  is  his  own  judgment. 

We  are  passing  through  a  season  of  much  uneasiness 
among  those  who  are  occupied  in  the  business  of  edu 
cation,  particularly  about  our  colleges,  which  we  persist 

213 


2i4  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

is  calling  "universities,"  whether  or  not  they  are  pos 
sessed  of  university  equipment.  The  heads  of  these  in 
stitutions,  with  a  few  worthy  exceptions,  appear  to  be 
the  most  distrustful  concerning  the  efficacy  of  their  own 
labors.  Naturally  the  great  body  of  the  uneducated, 
delighting  to  hear  from  such  unimpeachable  authority 
that  the  colleges  are  not  what  they  ought  to  be  and  that 
the  boasted  education  which  colleges  are  supposed  to 
furnish  is  of  little  worth,  indulge  in  much  self-gratula- 
tion  over  the  fact  that  they  never  wasted  their  time 
upon  such  a  trifle;  while  the  newspapers,  who  aim  to 
please  the  majority,  swell  the  chorus  of  censure  and 
crow  lustily  over  the  folly  of  spending  valuable  years  in 
acquiring  something  which  "is  of  no  use"  to  the  ambi 
tious  individual  seeking  for  wealth,  or  power,  or  what 
ever  the  man  of  the  day  most  covets.  Behold  the  fall 
of  him  who  has  presumed  to  look  down  on  "the  com 
mon  people"  because  he  was  possessed  of  an  education 
which  turns  out  to  be  only  a  sham!  And  the  voice  of 
the  common  people  is  divine;  yet  I  could  never  per 
ceive  the  wisdom  of  the  remark  attributed  to  Lincoln, 
to  the  effect  that  God  must  have  greatly  loved  the  com 
mon  people  because  he  made  so  many  of  them;  for 
that  might  with  equal  wisdom  be  said  of  mosquitoes  or 
of  the  ordinary  house-fly. 

One  of  the  consequences  of  these  apologetic  out-giv- 
ings  of  some  of  our  presidents  has  been  the  out-pour 
ing  of  the  spirit  of  a  few  of  the  persons  who  hang  upon 
the  outskirts  of  education.  At  a  recent  assemblage  in 
Boston  of  what  is  styled,  with  the  customary  grandeur, 
"The  National  Education  Association,"  the  principal 
of  a  New  York  High  School  and  the  Superintendent  of 
Public  Schools  in  Wisconsin  delivered  themselves  with 
portentous  wisdom  of  such  observations  as  these : 


THE  WAR  ON  THE  COLLEGES        215 

"There  is  no  spectacle  in  American  life  to-day  more 
pitiful  than  the  contrast  between  what  the  college  ad 
vertises  to  do  and  what  it  performs."  "The  teach 
ing  by  our  college  professors  is  the  poorest  in  the 
country."  "The  average  third-year  boy  in  the  high 
school  is  more  able  to  think,  discuss  and  express  an 
idea  than  the  average  college  student  two  years  older." 
"The  young  man  learns  in  college  that  he  need  not 
work;  he  comes  to  regard  his  college  as  a  social  and 
sporting  club."  "Colleges  with  their  narrow  and 
false  ideals  of  culture  *  *  *  their  domination 
has  reached  a  degree  of  intolerable  impertinence." 
"The  high  schools  in  desperation  have  been  drawing 
a  line  of  cleavage  between  those  fitting  for  college  and 
those  who  are  not.  This  is  unnecessary,  unfitting, 
and  undemocratic." 

After  such  luminous  remarks  it  is  not  surprising  that 
the  distinguished  fragment  of  this  Association,  known 
as  "The  Department  of  Secondary  Education,"  adopted 
a  resolution  declaring  that  there  should  be  a  recog 
nition  as  electives  in  college-entrance  requirements  "of 
all  subjects  well  taught  in  the  high  schools" — manual 
training,  commercial  branches,  and  agriculture ;  and  the 
requirement  of  two  languages  in  addition  to  English 
was  forcibly  denounced.  The  force  of  folly  could  no 
further  go.  The  Evening  Post,  in  an  editorial  article  of 
comment,  justly  says : — 

"That  situation  represents  the  culmination  of  a 
wave  of  criticism  and  restlessness  which  in  large  meas 
ure  owes  its  strength  and  volume  to  what  we  cannot 
but  feel  has  been  a  want  of  perception,  on  the  part 
of  many  of  our  leading  college  presidents  especially, 
of  the  issue  really  involved  in  the  agitation  about  our 
colleges  which  has  for  some  years  been  so  much  to 
the  fore.  To  be  conscious  of  deficiencies,  ready  to 
admit  them  and  anxious  to  remedy  them,  is  one  thing; 
it  is  quite  another  to  assume  a  position  of  apologetic 


216  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

defensiveness,  to  talk  as  though  the  faults  of  the  col 
lege  were  all  there  was  in  the  institution,  to  declare  that 
the  college  is  useless  unless  it  devotes  itself  to  a  task 
quite  other  than  that  for  which  it  has  stood  in  the 
past.  And  yet  this  is  essentially  the  attitude  in  which 
more  than  one  of  our  leading  college  presidents  has 
allowed  himself  to  be  placed.  They  should  have 
known— we  hardly  think  they  can  have  actually  real 
ized  it — that  such  talk  as  this  means  not  the  improve 
ment  of  the  college,  but  its  abolition;  not  greater  ef 
ficiency  in  attaining  the  aims  to  which  it  has  his 
torically  been  devoted,  but  the  abandonment  of  those 


aims. 

*         * 


Now,  the  fact  is  that  a  great  deal  of  the  stuff  that 
is  talked  about  colleges  by  such  persons  as  those  from 
whom  the  above  quotations  are  made  is  simply  rub 
bish.  There  are,  of  course,  young  men  who  go  to  col 
lege  and  don't  work,  but  to  talk  as  though  this  were 
true  of  all  of  them,  or  of  a  majority  of  them,  is  to 
fly  in  the  face  of  the  simplest  observation.  Very  much 
the  greater  part  of  the  young  men  in  our  colleges  work 
as  hard  at  their  studies  as  can  reasonably  be  expected. 
As  for  the  superiority  of  the  third-year  high  school 
boy  to  the  college  youth  two  years  older,  this  is,  of 
course,  a  mere  personal  assertion.  And  the  terrible 
hardships  of  differentiating  between  courses  designed 
to  be  followed  by  a  college  training  and  those  that 
are  not,  rests,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  upon  the  idea  that 
a  college  has  no  rights  that  a  true  democrat  is  bound 
to  respect.  It  may  be  that  the  objects  which  a  col 
lege  pursues  are  not  worth  pursuing;  but  so  long  as  it 
does  pursue  them,  it  must  of  necessity  demand,  on  the 
part  of  entering  students,  such  preparation  as  is  neces 
sary  for  their  attainment." 

The  substance  of  the  accusations  made  against  our 
colleges  seems  to  be  that  their  courses  of  instruction  do 
not  tend  to  develop  strong,  earnest  workers  or  to  "fit 
young  men  for  the  toils  and  struggles  of  active  life"; 


THE  WAR  ON  THE  COLLEGES        217 

at  least  that  is  about  all  I  am  able  to  make  out  of  the 
multitude  of  words  with  which  we  are  deluged  by  the 
discontented  and  chiefly  by  some  of  our  college  and 
university  presidents.  It  is  unfortunate  that  the  heads 
of  our  "institutions  of  learning"  think  that  it  is  in 
cumbent  on  them  to  undertake  the  improvement  of  the 
world  instead  of  giving  their  chief  attention  to  the  dis 
charge  of  their  immediate  duties;  and  they  exhibit  a 
strong  inclination  to  become  autocratic  and  dictatorial 
as  if,  forsooth,  their  accidental  elevation  to  the  place 
of  head-teachers  imposed  upon  them  the  labor  of  regu 
lating  everything  and  everybody.  In  this  respect  they 
certainly  surpass  such  old-fashioned  presidents  as  Mark 
Hopkins,  Noah  Porter,  and  James  McCosh,  who  did 
some  good  work  in  the  cause  of  education,  although 
they  did  not  devote  much  time  to  the  business  of  "up 
lifting,"  or  rather  of  perpetually  talking  about  it  to  mis 
cellaneous  audiences.  There  is  one  other  charge;  it  is 
said  that  the  colleges  foster  idleness  and  exclusiveness, 
producing  mere  dilettanti.  A  dilettante  is,  I  believe, 
"a  lover  or  admirer  of  the  fine  arts,"  and  not  altogether 
an  abandoned  wretch  or  a  moral  outcast.  Rather  an 
extensive  observation  of  college  graduates  during  the 
past  quarter  of  a  century  has  not  disclosed  to  me  any 
considerable  number  of  dilettanti.  I  have  generally 
found  them  to  be  earnest  and  conscientious  men,  at  all 
events  those  of  the  professions.  Most  of  this  talk 
about  aristocracy  and  exclusiveness,  luxury,  lavish  ex 
penditure  and  lazy  self-indulgence  among  college  stu 
dents  is  pure  twraddle.  In  every  large  body  of  young 
men  there  will  be  idlers  and  spendthrifts,  and  the  pro 
portion  of  them  will  be  about  as  great  as  that  which  is 
found  in  the  entire  community.  As  to  "luxury,"  ideas 
change  with  the  progress  of  time.  When  I  entered  col- 


2i 8  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

lege  over  forty  years  ago,  my  father  thought  me  "luxu 
rious"  because  I  had  a  carpet  in  my  room;  and  it  was 
a  very  cheap  carpet  at  that.  To  the  survivors  of  that 
time,  what  are  necessities  now  seem  to  be  luxuries,  but 
yet  they  are  not  exactly  sybaritic;  facilities  for  bathing, 
for  example — and  other  facilities.  The  men  who  were 
graduated  in  those  days  were  none  the  worse  perhaps 
for  their  lack  of  comforts;  nor  does  it  seem  to  me  that 
the  graduates  of  to-day  are  any  the  worse  for  having 
them.  Are  these  young  men  of  the  twentieth  century 
inferior  to  their  ancestors?  If  they  are,  we  are  obliged 
to  infer  that  the  system  of  college  training  then  pre 
valent  must  have  been  more  efficient  than  it  is  now,  and 
that  the  modern  improvements  of  which  we  have  been 
so  proud  have  not  been  improvements  at  all;  that  the 
millions  on  millions  of  money  extracted  from  pluto 
cratic  pockets  have  been  obtained  on  false  pretenses  and 
have  been  virtually  wasted  in  perceptorial  extravagances. 
As  to  aristocratic  exclusiveness,  I  will  have  something 
to  say  later. 

I  assert  with  much  indignation  that  the  charge 
that  "the  young  man  learns  in  college  that  he  need  not 
work"  and  that  "he  comes  to  regard  his  college  as  a 
social  and  sporting  club"  is  false  and  silly,  the  creation 
either  of  ignorance,  or  of  malice;  and  I  am  sorry  for 
the  unfortunate  lads  whom  necessity  compels  to  attend 
public  schools  or  high  schools  controlled  by  such 
persons  as  those  who  are  guilty  of  disseminating  the 
libels  proclaimed  at  the  meeting  in  Boston. 

We  know  that  the  college  curriculum  has  been  vastly 
enlarged  in  scope,  the  courses  of  study  improved,  and 
the  opportunities  of  students  immeasurably  increased. 
To  say  that  "the  teaching  by  our  college  professors  is 
the  poorest  in  the  country"  is  a  contemptible  slur  that  is 


THE  WAR  ON  THE  COLLEGES        219 

sufficient  to  discredit  all  the  allegations  of  the  high- 
schopl  orator.  The  age  of  matriculation  has  been  ad 
vanced,  thereby  delaying  the  time  of  graduation  and 
postponing  the  beginning  of  the  earning  period,  in  or 
der  that  preparation  may  be  more  thorough  and  the 
men  better  fitted  to  avail  of  their  greater  opportuni 
ties.  But,  to  leave  the  high-school  apostles  for  the  mo 
ment,  all  this,  according  to  some  of  our  presidents, 
does  not  result  in  producing  men  really  superior  to  the 
graduates  of  a  generation  or  more  ago.  If  that  is  so, 
if  the  new  men  are  no  wiser  or  stronger  than  their 
predecessors,  then  it  is  manifest  that  the  "old  education'7 
which  we  used  to  enjoy  is  not  to  be  sneered  at,  and  that, 
after  all,  it  may  not  be  prudent  to  bring  up  young  men 
to  be  "as  much  unlike  their  fathers  as  possible." 

Well,  as  far  as  that  is  concerned,  much  depends  on 
your  point  of  view  and  the  "point  of  view"  at  present 
is  mainly  of  those  who  are  convinced  that  nothing  in 
life  is  so  important  as  to  "push"  and  "get  ahead." 
There  is  much  vague  talk,  principally  rhetorical,  and 
largely  made  up  of  those  well-sounding  platitudes  about 
uplifting  humanity,  and  devoting  ourselves  to  the  na 
tion's  service,  and  abstaining  from  the  pursuit  of  riches, 
and  sternly  devoting  ourselves  to  obedience  to  such 
laws,  for  example,  as  those  which  forbid  one  to  enclose 
a  letter  in  an  express  package,  and  striving  for  the  tri 
umph  of  those  charmingly  indefinite  "democratic 
ideals,"  the  precise  nature  whereof  we  are  not  much  en 
lightened  about,  because  the  orator  scorns  details.  It  all 
means,  however,  that  there  is  but  one  thing  needful 
for  man — unrest;  for  if  you  rest,  even  for  a  moment, 
you  are  sure  to  be  passed  in  the  race,  life  being  merely 
a  race.  I  am  tempted  to  quote  from  Mr.  Benson's  es- 


220  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

say  on  "Contentment,"  for  he  dares  to  say  what  most  of 
us  are  timid  about  saying: 

"The  gospel  that  I  detest,"  he  says,  "is  the  gospel 
of  success,  the  teaching  that  every  one  ought  to  be 
discontented  with  his  setting,  that  a  man  ought  to  get 
to  the  front,  clear  a  space  around  him,  eat,  drink, 
make  love,  cry  and  strive  and  fight.  It  is  all  to  be  at 
the  expense  of  feebler  people.  That  is  a  detestable 
ideal,  because  it  is  the  gospel  of  tyranny  rather  than 
the  gospel  of  equality.  *  *  *  The  result  of  it  is 
the  lowest  kind  of  democratic  sentiment,  which  says, 
'Every  one  is  as  good  as  every  one  else,  and  I  am  a 
little  better,'  and  the  jealous  spirit,  which  says,  'If  I 
cannot  be  prominent,  I  will  do  my  best  that  no  one 
else  shall  be.'  " 

He  calls  our  attention  to  the  custom  of  disguising 
rank  individualism  under  a  pretense  of  desiring  to  im 
prove  social  conditions: 

"The  clean  handed  social  reformer,  who  desires  no 
personal  advantage,  and  whose  influence  is  a  matter 
of  anxious  care,  is  one  of  the  noblest  of  men;  but  now 
that  schemes  of  social  reform  are  fashionable,  there 
are  a  number  of  blatant  people  who  use  them  for  pur 
poses  of  personal  advancement.  What  I  rather  de 
sire  is  to  encourage  a  very  different  kind  of  individual 
ism,  the  individualism  of  the  man  who  realizes  that  the 
hope  of  the  race  depends  upon  the  quality  of  life,  upon 
the  number  of  people  who  live  quiet,  active,  gentle, 
kindly,  faithful  lives,  enjoying  their  work  and  turning 
for  recreation  to  the  nobler  and  simpler  sources  of 
pleasure— the  love  of  nature,  poetry,  literature  and 


Of  course  this  is  all  very  old-fashioned  and  con 
temptible  ;  it  tends  to  luxury  and  to  exclusiveness,  and  is 
suitable  only  to  the  wretched  minority. 


THE  WAR  ON  THE  COLLEGES        221 

Now,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  gospel  of  stren- 
uousness,  so  loudly  proclaimed  by  the  man  who  enjoys 
the  distinction  of  being  the  most  famous  of  living  Amer 
icans,  is  the  one  which  appeals  most  forcibly  to  the 
popular  mind,  there  is  an  element  of  vulgarity  about 
it  which  does  not  commend  it  to  the  few  who  consider 
that  there  are  virtues  in  the  quiet  and  useful  life  as  well 
as  in  the  noisy,  showy  life ;  and  there  are  such  things  as 
"nature,  poetry,  literature,  and  art,"  as  well  as  steam, 
electricity,  and  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the  day 
laborer;  and  that  there  is  something  beyond  the  mere 
doing  of  things  which,  aided  or  unaided  by  the  doer, 
find  their  way  into  the  columns  of  the  daily  press.  Take 
literature,  for  example.  One  of  our  most  celebrated 
University  Presidents  has  said: 

"It  is  plain  that  you  cannot  impart  'university 
methods'  to  thousands,  or  create  'investigators'  by  the 
score,  unless  you  confine  your  university  education  to 
matters  which  dull  men  can  investigate,  your  labora 
tory  training  to  tasks  which  mere  plodding  diligence 
and  submissive  patience  can  compass.  Yet,  if  you  do 
so  limit  and  constrain  what  you  teach,  you  thrust 
taste  and  insight  and  delicacy  of  perception  out  of  the 
schools,  exalt  the  obvious  and  the  merely  useful  above 
the  things  which  are  only  imaginatively  or  spiritually 
conceived,  make  education  an  affair  of  tasting,  and 
handling,  and  smelling,  and  so  create  Philistia,  that 
country  in  which  they  speak  of  'mere  literature.'  "* 

But  if  you  may  not  teach  this  love  of  literature,  for 
its  own  sake,  by  rule  and  formula,  in  the  arid  quarters 
of  the  class  room,  you  may,  if  you  know  how,  create 
an  appropriate  atmosphere  in  which  this  love  may  be 
fostered  and  developed,  and  it  is  not  an  atmosphere  of 


*Woodrow  Wilson:    "Mere  Literature,"   1896. 


222  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

agriculture,  commercial  branches  and  veterinary  sur 
gery.  If  the  chief  aim  of  our  colleges  is  to  bring  up 
what  are  called  "men  of  action,"  publicists,  politicians, 
pedagogues,  scientific  discoverers,  and  social  reformers, 
then  the  Philistine  will  dominate  and  Gradgrind  will 
triumph.  Where  the  atmosphere  is  essentially  ultili- 
tarian,  you  will  never  cultivate  the  flowers  of  "mere 
literature."  The  man  who  has  what  was  once  called 
a  "liberal  education,"  that  which  ought  to  be  had  by 
every  one  who  deserves  the  "grand  old  name  of  gen 
tleman,"  is  like  him  who  has  a  deep  and  abiding  fond 
ness  for  animated  creation  which  does  not  find  expres 
sion  in  the  killing  of  birds  and  animals  under  the  speci 
ous  pretence  of  a  devotion  to  the  study  of  "faunal  na 
ture." 

The  gentlemen  of  the  high-school  class  have  a  great 
horror  of  what  we  call  "the  classics."  For  many  years, 
it  has  been  the  cry  of  the  utilitarian, 

"What  is  the  good  of  Latin  and  Greek?  Of  what  use 
are  they  to  men  of  strength,  and  force,  and  lofty  as 
piration?" 

So  in  deference  to  outcry,  for  we  yield  habitually  to 
the  views  of  those  who  make  the  most  noise,  the  study 
of  those  languages  has  almost  ceased  and  that  of  science 
occupies  the  primacy.  Perhaps  this  circumstance  has 
contributed  largely  to  the  diminution  in  the  number  of 
scholarly  men  of  general  cultivation.  In  their  place 
we  have  chemists,  engineers,  and  electricians;  men  of 
great  capacity  and  usefulness;  but  there  is  no  good 
reason  why  they  should  not  be  men  of  culture  as  well 
as  the  lawyers,  clergymen  and  physicians,  and  no  doubt 
some  of  them  are.  In  their  technical  training  they  need 
not  deprive  themselves  of  that  general  culture  which 
a  college  education  was  meant  to  give  and  ought  to 


THE  WAR  ON  THE  COLLEGES        223 

give,  so  that  all  who  have  had  its  benefits  may  have 
some  common  ground  on  which  to  meet.  It  is  not 
necessary  that  all  of  them  should  be  skillful  Latinists 
or  Grecians,  but  no  one  can  justly  be  called  a  scholar 
who  has  no  knowledge  whatever  of  Greek  or  Latin. 
He  may  be  a  good  chemist,  engineer  or  electrician,  and 
he  may  be  possessed  of  genius,  but  he  will  not  be  an 
educated  man  in  the  broad  sense.  It  is  no  answer  to 
say  that  there  are  great  men  who  knew  not  a  word  of 
those  languages.  It  might  as  well  be  said  that  no  one 
need  know  anything  of  the  Bible  because  Plato  and 
Socrates  never  knew  anything  of  it;  or  that  no  man 
should  ever  "go  to  college"  because  Benjamin  Frank 
lin  and  Abraham  Lincoln  never  did.  The  inquiry 
whether  Lincoln  would  have  been  what  he  was  if  he 
had  been  a  college  man  always  seemed  to  me  to  be 
profitless.  If  he  had  been  educated  as  a  soldier,  a  phy 
sician,  or  a  theologian  he  might  not  have  been  Presi 
dent,  but  that  does  not  prove  that  we  should  not  have 
soldiers,  or  doctors,  or  ministers.  One  might  as  well 
conjecture  what  his  life  would  have  been  if  he  had  been 
born  in  a  city  instead  of  in  a  Kentucky  log  cabin. 

I  am  aware  that  the  method  of  teaching  uthe 
classics"  which  treats  them  merely  as  vehicles  for  im 
parting  a  knowledge  of  grammar  or  etymology  is 
worthless,  There  has  been  too  much  of  that  and  too 
many  questions  such  as  the  famous  one  uwho  dragged 
whom  how  many  times  around  the  walls  of  what?" 
Such  abominations  have  disgusted  generations  of  pupils 
and  made  them  "comprehend,  but  never  love"  the  liter 
ature  of  Greece  and  Rome.  But  there  are  remedies  for 
such  evils. 

The  humor  of  the  situation  lies  in  the  fact  that  the 
assailants  of  our  colleges — insiders  as  well  as  outsiders 


224  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

— seem  to  think  that  there  is  a  vested  right  in  the  mul 
titude  to  have  a  college  education,  and  that  particular 
form  of  education  with  which  the  multitude  is  pleased. 
They  ignore  the  right  of  the  minority  to  seek  the  cul 
ture  which  that  minority  desires,  and  to  have  a  college 
where  it  may  enjoy  its  own  form  of  education.  I  do  not 
deny  that  my  fellow-being  who  craves  the  "commercial 
branches/'  manual  training,  agriculture,  veterinary  sur 
gery  and  all  that,  is  entitled  to  go  where  such  things  are 
taught,  but  I  deny  his  right  to  drag  me  there  with  him, 
and  to  deprive  me  of  what  used  to  be  called  "the  hu 
manities" — liberal  studies.  He  may  be  just  as  good 
a  man  as  I  am— perhaps  a  much  better  man  than  I  can 
hope  to  be — but  I  do  not  admit  his  right  to  compel  me 
to  associate  with  him  if  his  tastes,  manners,  and  per 
sonal  qualities  are  not  agreeable  to  me.  He  may  call 
me  "aristocratic"  and  "exclusive"  if  I  prefer  culture  to 
mere  utility,  and  to  choose  my  own  friends;  but  if  I 
am  forced  to  attend  a  college  or  a  university  where  I 
am  constrained  by  law  to  fraternize  with  him,  then 
there  is  no  true  democracy  about  it;  it  is  tyranny,  as 
Mr.  Benson  says.  My  individual  liberty  of  choice  is 
destroyed.  Why  he  should  want  to  live  with  me  against 
my  will,  I  cannot  divine ;  I  should  think  he  would  find 
it  as  uncomfortable  as  I  should.  If  Doe,  an  aspiring 
devotee  of  useful  studies,  insists  upon  having  a  college 
where  Roe  is  obliged  to  associate  with  him,  willy-nilly 
— a  situation  he  will  never  find  in  the  world  after  his 
graduation — let  him  have  it,  but  he  will  fail  in  one  es 
sential  point— Roe  will  not  go  there.  If  Roe  selects  a 
university  which  is  more  or  less  "exclusive,"  as  every 
true  university  must  be,  Doe  has  no  right  to  demand 
that  he,  too,  shall  be  admitted  there  on  his  own  terms 
and  have  everything  changed  to  suit  his  preferences. 


THE  WAR  ON  THE  COLLEGES        225 

The  idea  that  because  all  men  in  our  land  have  equal 
political  rights  they  have  likewise  equal  social  rights  is 
not  democratic;  it  is  socialistic.  If  I  want  to  ride  in 
a  Pullman  car  instead  of  in  an  ordinary  coach,  I  mean 
to  do  it  unless  I  am  prohibited  from  so  doing  by  some 
legislative  enactment;  and  to  that  extent  will  be  as  un 
democratic  as  I  please. 

Far  be  it  from  an  humble  person  like  myself  to  as 
sert  that  the  noble  task  of  solving  the  great  social  prob 
lems  of  the  day  should  be  shunned  and  avoided  by  our 
university  men;  but  there  are  other  things  in  life. 
There  is  room  for  all  the  workers,  but  there  must  be 
some  room  also  for  the  gentle  scholars  who  love  the  less 
vigorous  forms  of  reflection  and  thought.  There  is 
room  for  the  scholar  who  does  not  trouble  his  soul  with 
envious  feelings  toward  those  who  are  more  largely 
blessed — or  cursed — with  riches.  Too  much  stress  is 
laid  upon  the  sorrows  of  the  poor  young  man  who  thinks 
that  he  is  wronged  by  those  who,  having  more  money 
and  different  associations,  are  not  disposed  to  embrace 
him  and  to  call  him  brother.  The  tastes  of  men,  young 
and  old,  are  various;  the  college  world  is  not  and  can 
not  be  made  to  be  wholly  different  from  the  world  in 
general.  Young  men  as  well  as  their  elders  will  and 
must  select  their  own  companions,  their  own  fields  of 
usefulness,  their  own  objects  of  endeavor,  interest  and 
ambition.  According  to  my  own  observation,  the  lads 
form  friendships  in  college  with  very  little  concern 
about  the  matter  of  wealth;  the  element  of  snobbish 
ness  is  lacking  in  them.  But  they  will  not  be  coerced 
into  familiar  association  with  any  one. 

uThe  culture  and  manurance  of  minds  in  youth," 
said  Bacon,  uhath  such  a  forcible,  though  unseen  oper 
ation,  as  hardly  any  length  of  time  or  contraction  of 


226  EDGEHILL  ESSAYS 

labor  can  countervail  it  afterwards."  But  it  must  be 
an  intellectual  preparation,  and  our  professors  need 
not  expect  to  make  human  nature  over  again  or  essen 
tially  different  from  what  it  has  always  been;  they 
must  seek  to  guide  men  and  not  to  re-create  them. 

Let  no  one  say  that  I  mean  to  ignore  the  moral  and 
the  ethical;  they  are  comprehended  in  the  intellectual. 
The  doctrinaires  and  the  visionaries  of  the  day  are  wed 
ded  to  the  delusion  that  there  are  no  ethics  or  morals 
except  the  socialistic;  those  who  disagree  with  them 
are  thrust  aside  with  the  sneering  epithets  of  "aristo 
crat"  and  "patrician."  There  were  ethics  before  Em 
ma  Goldman  and  morals  before  Karl  Marx.  True  de 
mocracy  is  not  the  rule  of  the  rabble;  it  is  the  rule  of 
the  people  of  sound  sense  and  wisdom.  We  want  no 
"politics"  in  our  colleges.  Let  our  college  leaders  ab 
stain  from  politics,  which  distract  their  minds  from 
their  legitimate  work  and  lure  them  into  the  perilous 
regions  of  demagogy.  Political  ambition  has  spoiled 
many  good  lawyers;  it  has  ruined  some  promising  uni 
versity  presidents. 


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